Alexander Bortnikov | |
|---|---|
Александр Бортников | |
_(cropped).jpg) Bortnikov in 2025 | |
| Director of the Federal Security Service | |
| Assumed office 12 May 2008 | |
| President | Vladimir Putin Dmitry Medvedev |
| Deputy | Sergei Korolev Sergei Smirnov (2003-2020) |
| Preceded by | Nikolai Patrushev |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alexander Vasilyevich Bortnikov (1951-11-15)15 November 1951 (age 74) |
| Political party | CPSU (1975–1991) |
| Spouse | Tatyana Borisovna |
| Children | Denis Bortnikov |
| Education | FSB Academy |
| Alma mater | Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | |
| Service | |
| Service years | 1975–present |
| Rank | General of the Army |
| Conflicts | |
Alexander Vasilyevich Bortnikov (Russian:Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Бо́ртников; born 15 November 1951) is a Russianintelligence officer who has served as thedirector of theFederal Security Service (FSB) since 2008. He is one of the most powerful members of thesilovik faction of presidentVladimir Putin's inner circle.[1][a] AHero of the Russian Federation since 2019, he also holds the rank ofGeneral of the Army, the second highest grade in use in the Russian military.[b] According to some experts, it is likely Bortnikov played a key role in Putin's decision toinvade Ukraine in 2022.[2]
Bortnikov was born inMolotov,Russian SFSR,Soviet Union (now Perm, Russia) in 1951. In 1966, he joinedKomsomol, the Communist Party's youth wing. He graduated from theLeningrad Institute of Railway Engineers in 1973, joining theCommunist Party nearly immediately upon graduation. He then worked as arailway engineer inGatchina for two years before joining theCommittee for State Security (KGB) in 1975.[3][4] He spent the next 28 years working for the KGB, its interim successor theFederal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), and ultimately the FSB, based in Leningrad/Saint Petersburg for the entire period. According toThe Times of London, Bortnikov andVladimir Putin first met while both stationed in Leningrad in the 1970s, however Bortnikov has never elaborated on rumors about their first meeting.[5]
Bortnikov's break came in June 2003, when Sergey Smirnov, chief of theSaint Petersburg andLeningrad Oblast FSB, was sent to Moscow to become the principal deputy to the director of the agency amid theThree Whales Corruption Scandal. Bortnikov was promoted to fill the vacancy. On 24 February 2004 he was moved to Moscow and made chief of the Economic Security Service of the FSB, a deputy director of the agency.Sergey Naryshkin, the current head of theForeign Intelligence Service (SVR), was transferred from St. Petersburg to Moscow at the same time.[citation needed]
In February 2007, Russian magazineThe New Times wrote about theplan to murder defected FSB officerAlexander Litvinenko with reference to a source in the FSB, alleging "head of the FSB Economic Security Departmentgeneral-lieutenant Alexander Bortnikov had allegedly been appointed overseer of the operation."[6]
In May 2007, he was reported to have been implicated in amoney laundering case investigated by the RussianInterior Ministry in connection with the murder of theCentral Bank Deputy HeadAndrey Kozlov.[7][8]
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On 12 May 2008, Bortnikov was appointedDirector of the FSB by presidentDmitry Medvedev.[9] His tenure as FSB director has seen the agency return to the "punishing sword" once ascribed to the Cheka.[10]
Bortnikov is widely seen as ahawk and a willing participant in the Russian government's political repression at home and subversion abroad, however, compared to his peers, Bortnikov has a reputation as one of the more individually honest figures. One former FSB officer claimed Bortnikov is "uncomfortable with the condition of the agency, the blatant corruption, the indiscipline, the mercenaryism. But he doesn't know what to do about it, and thinks it's not as important as doing the [political] job'."[11]
In a December 2017 open letter published byKommersant, more than 30 Russian academics criticized Bortnikov for attempting to legitimize the StalinistGreat Purge in an interview he gave toRossiiskaya Gazeta on the hundredth anniversary of the establishment of theCheka, in which Bortnikov said the archives showed "a significant part" of the criminal cases of that period "had an objective side to them."[12]Nikita Petrov, a historian who studies the Soviet security services forMemorial, condemned Bortnikov's claims aslegal nihilism in an interview withNovaya Gazeta.
Bortnikov and his son Denis are members of theNavalny 35, a list of Russian human rights abusers compiled byAlexei Navalny, both have been subsequently sanctioned by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand.
In March 2021, a law was enacted to allow presidential appointees like Bortnikov (who turned 70 in 2022) to serve past statutory retirement age.[13]
Sources say Putin's decision toinvade Ukraine in February 2022 was influenced by a small group of war hawks around him, includingNikolai Patrushev,Yury Kovalchuk and Alexander Bortnikov. Bortnikov's FSB convinced Putin that most Ukrainians would welcome Russian troops as liberators.[2] Konstantine Skorkin, a Russia Expert at the Carnegie Center, told New Voice of Ukraine in an interview that Bortnikov and Patrushev were formed by theCold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and "believe that abloc confrontation with the West is a reasonable and correct world order. And in order to return to a predictable and manageable confrontation, it is necessary to divide thezones of influence through war, even with the risk of a clash with NATO. According to Patrushev and Bortnikov, Ukraine should be in the Russian zone of influence".[2]
On 20 March 2022, theSecurity Service of Ukraine (SBU) alleged that Bortnikov was a favorite to replace Vladimir Putin among a group of Russian elites plotting to assassinate Putin in a bid to stabilize the economy and reestablish ties with the West following sanctions imposed on Russia for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.[14]
On 25 March 2022,The Moscow Times noted that Bortnikov had disappeared from public view since around 11 March 2022, along with other senior siloviki includingSergey Shoigu,Igor Kostyukov andViktor Zolotov. In response state TV programs subsequently broadcast a purported 24 March security council meeting including brief appearances by many of the missing men, including Bortnikov, but it appeared to simply be an edited version of the earlier 11 March security council meeting.[15]
Shortly after the2023 Wagner Group mutiny, Belarus presidentLukashenko praised Bortnikov (together withYunus-bek Yevkurov) for mediating the end of the rebellion.[16]
In August 2024, Bortnikov was made head of the "counterterrorism operation" inKursk,Belgorod, andBryansk oblasts amidst theAugust 2024 Kursk Oblast incursion.[17] Russia's state borders are controlled by theFSB Border Service,[18] andconscripts from the FSB Border Service unsuccessfully defended theRussia–Ukraine border in the Kursk Oblast.[19] Bortnikov called the Ukrainian offensive "a terrorist attack" and accused Ukraine of attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure "with the support of the collective West."[20]
In March 2024, four TajikISIS–K gunmen launched anattack on a concert hall inKrasnogorsk, Russia, with rifles and incendiaries.[21] The attack, claimed by ISIS–K, killed 144 and injured 551 and marked the deadliest attack on Russian soil since theBeslan school siege in 2004. Putin and the FSB suggested thatUkraine was involved in the attack, without offering evidence.[22] Bortnikov said that "radical Islamists" prepared the attack with help from Ukrainian and Western "special services".[23]
Navalny associateIvan Zhdanov criticized Russian security services for their "catastrophic incompetence" and the FSB for being "busy with everything except its direct responsibilities – killing their political opponents, spying on citizens andprosecuting people who are against the war." Another associate,Leonid Volkov, said that the FSB "can't do the only job it really should be doing: preventing a real, nightmarish terrorist attack."[24]
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In February 2015, at the invitation of the United States, Bortnikov led a Russian delegation to aWashington, D.C. summit on counteringviolent extremism. His flight to the United States debuted a one-of-a-kind FSB operated TupolevTu-214PU airborne command post.[25]
From 27 to 28 January 2018, Bortnikov again visited the United States on a highly unusual trip together with the head of theForeign Intelligence Service (SVR)Sergey Naryshkin, and the head ofmilitary intelligence of the Russian Forces (GRU),Igor Korobov. The three met in Washington with CIA directorMike Pompeo, and according to press releases from the CIA, reportedly discussed the threat posed byIslamic State fighters returning from Syria to Russia andCentral Asia following interventions in theSyrian Civil War by aU.S.-led coalition andseparately by Russia.[26] Bortnikov called the meetings "very useful."[27]
As chairman of the Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee and Chairman of the Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services of theCommonwealth of Independent States, Bortnikov has often been tapped as an emissary to former Soviet states during times of heightened tension. On 21 May 2019, he appeared inDushanbe to meet with leaders ofTajikistan about the increasing presence ofIslamic State fighters in neighboring northernAfghanistan.[28] During the2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, he was dispatched to bothArmenia andAzerbaijan, and led a trilateral meeting headlined by intelligence chiefs from both belligerents.[27] In December 2021, he was sent toUzbekistan to meet with Uzbek presidentShavkat Mirziyoyev.[27]
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Bortnikov is married to Tatyana Bortnikova (née Borisovna).[29] Together they have one son,Denis Aleksandrovich Bortnikov [Wikidata] (born 19 November 1974), who is deputy director ofVTB Bank, the second largest financial institution in Russia. Bortnikov's brother, Mikhail Vasilyevich Bortnikov, born in 1953, is a retired colonel, his sister Olga Vasilievna Bortnikova, born in 1958, is a pensioner.
From November 2004 to May 2008, Bortnikov was a member of the board of directors ofSovcomflot (SCF), Russia's largest shipping company andhydrocarbon transporter.[30]
On 27 July 2015,Novaya Gazeta released an investigative report which claimed Bortnikov, as well as a number of other senior FSB officials, were involved in a land settlement in Moscow'sOdintsov district.[31] According to the newspaper, the group arranged the sale of 4.8 hectares (12 acres) of land on the site of a public kindergarten along theRublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway (along which elite estates including Vladimir Putin's primary residency atNovo-Ogaryovo lie). In exchange for illegally privatizing the public land, each allegedly received around $2.5 million.[31][32] According to the newspaper, the published investigations are one of the reasons the FSB has offered to shut down public access toRosreestr's registry of property ownership. Kremlin spokesmanDmitry Peskov said he was unaware of any investigation into wrongdoing.[32][33]
In 2018,Roskomnadzor shut down the investigative reporting website Russiangate.com hours after the site published a report alleging that Bortnikov owned a secret land plot and luxury house inSestroretsk, 30 kilometers northwest of Saint Petersburg, worth up to 300 million rubles ($5.3 million), on which he had not been paying taxes.[34]
Bortnikov was officially sanctioned by thegovernment of the United Kingdom in 2014 in relation to theRusso-Ukrainian War. Trust services sanctions were added in March 2023.[35] He was additionally sanctioned with an asset freeze and travel ban for his responsibility for the preparation and use of chemical weapons (namely anovichok) in the attempted assassination ofAlexei Navalny in 2021.[36] His son Denis was sanctioned on 24 February 2022 as director or equivalent at a Russian government-affiliated entity, namelyVTB Bank. Trust services sanctions were imposed in March 2023.[37]
On 22 February 2022, in response to Russia recognizing the independence of separatist regions in eastern Ukraine during theprelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States imposed sanctions on several Russian individuals, including Bortnikov and his son, Denis.[38]
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| Preceded by | Chief of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad OblastFSB Directorate June 2003 – March 2004 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Head of the Economic Security Service ofFSB 24 February 2004 – 12 May 2008 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Director of theFSB 12 May 2008 – present | Incumbent |
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