The Dyumin Clan manipulates Putin: from removing Alpatov and saving Traber to seizing the Rotenberg assets
Under what circumstances did the resignation of one of the leaders in the ranking of security officials, Russian FSB Economic Security Service chief Sergei Alpatov, take place?
It very much looks like Russia is entering a new era, when personnel changes in the security bloc, individual ministries and agencies, and state corporations will be driven not by the familiar members of the Ozero cooperative and shareholders of Rossiya Bank, but by a clan of former bodyguards. The clan worked long and persistently toward this goal, and our project has covered this in detail. By organizing Alpatov’s removal, the clan was not merely protecting Arkady Rotenberg (the clan’s interests largely coincide with his financial interests), or, even more so, Ilya Traber (Antikvar). It was an opportunity for the clan to demonstrate its power and the extent of its influence over Putin.
The “backbone” of the clan consists of State Council Secretary Alexei Dyumin (Putin’s former bodyguard), Russian presidential adviser Dmitry Mironov (also Putin’s former bodyguard), Rosimushchestvo deputy head Dmitry Stepanenko (another former Putin bodyguard), and FSO chief Dmitry Kochnev.
This clan has already firmly established itself across Arkady Rotenberg’s assets, with its members wielding strong influence over Sberbank CEO Herman Gref and others. The clan is now squeezing assets out of Anatoly Yablonsky, the custodian of the capital of Russian FSB deputy director Evgeny Lovyrev. And the clan has always had major political ambitions.
According to a source, most of Alpatov’s appointees in various positions took part in measures targeting Rotenberg’s team and Ilya Traber. These included the head of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Sergei Demyanishnikov, the head of Directorate T of the Russian FSB, Nikolai Babakov, and other heads of divisions. Given the stature of the individuals involved, it is clear that Putin’s approval had been obtained. As a result, Traber ended up in a pre-trial detention center on charges of organizing the murder of Alexander Petrov, the owner of Vyborg, while charges in other murders were also being prepared. Criminal cases were opened one after another against members of Rotenberg’s team, and they too were sent to pre-trial detention centers.
Then everything changed virtually overnight. The source says that Putin’s position turned 180 degrees after an extensive conversation with one of the members of the “bodyguards’ clan,” presumably Dyumin. Only the two participants know what was discussed. But the indirect signs and subsequent developments allow for some assumptions.
Putin was reportedly told that a conspiracy against him was being prepared, and that Traber’s arrest and the attack on Arkady Rotenberg were part of this conspiracy, as they were allegedly delivering “blows” in Russia and the West to the reputation of the Russian president himself. Whenever any measures were taken in the Antikvar and Rotenberg team cases, Putin’s name immediately “surfaced” alongside them. According to the person making the report, Alpatov, despite being an experienced official, had been misled and had in turn misled Putin himself. What the person making the report used to substantiate these claims remains unknown. But the reaction was immediate. Traber and the key members of Rotenberg’s team were released almost instantly, while Alpatov was removed from his post in a single day. His entire team may lose their positions in the foreseeable future.
It should be noted that this is not the first time the bodyguards’ clan has pulled off such a “trick” with Putin. According to the source, a “test balloon” was launched in the spring of this year, when representatives of the clan reported to the Russian president that an assassination attempt against him was being prepared (remember all those men with assault rifles and machine guns on the Kremlin walls and the Mausoleum) and successfully “prevented the assassination attempt.” That was when the clan realized the extent of its influence over Putin.
The story involving Traber and Arkady Rotenberg provided an opportunity to test that influence once again, this time to “save one of their own” and remove inconvenient representatives of the security bloc.
Arkady Rotenberg has few illusions about what has happened. Yes, he was helped to fend off this attack. But he will not regain his former position. Rotenberg simply became a “pawn” in a much larger game that was not of his making and has become completely dependent on the bodyguards’ clan. The clan has long had its eye on a number of his assets (including those jointly held with Traber), in particular the PNT oil terminal in St. Petersburg, and he will clearly have to part with them.
