Inside Moscow’s latest clash of clans: A new counterintelligence chief could hand Igor Sechin influence over both the FSB and the army

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Battle for the chair

The fierce struggle for the post of FSB Department of Military Counterintelligence (DVKR) chief flared up in December 2024 following the resignation of the previous head, Nikolai Yuryev (whom The Insider had already covered in detail). Colonel General Yuryev was dismissed after the death of General Igor Kirillov, the late head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Troops, who was killed in Moscow on Dec. 17, 2024 by an explosion near a residential building on Ryazansky Prospekt. Kirillov’s death was described by Vladimir Putin as the gravest of failures by the security services, and he demanded that those responsible be punished.

During his lifetime, Kirillov was notorious for spreading false claims about biological weapons that were allegedly being developed by the United States in laboratories on Ukrainian territory. Two days before the general’s death, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) brought charges in absentia against Kirillov, accusing him of ordering the use of K-1 combat grenades filled with toxic substances. Later, some media outlets reported that Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) had been involved in Kirillov’s killing.

Initially, it was expected that Russian military counterintelligence would be headed either by the first deputy chief of the DVKR, Vice Admiral Pavel Boyko, who previously served as head of the FSB directorate for the Pacific Fleet, or by Alexander Vasilyev, from the FSB’s so-called Ural clan.

However, while the candidacies of the two top contenders were being vetted in high offices, the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, intervened in the process, leaving Lieutenant General Ivan Tkachev as the only remaining candidate. Tkachev previously headed the Sixth Service of the FSB’s Internal Security Directorate, nicknamed “Sechin’s special forces,” then moved into the post of head of Directorate “K,” the FSB’s Economic Security Service.

A year and a half ago, Sechin had already scored a major bureaucratic victory when Sergei Shoigu was replaced as defense minister by Andrei Belousov. Unlike Shoigu, the economist Belousov is far from a stranger to Sechin — after all, from 2015 to 2018, Belousov served as chairman of Rosneft’s board of directors.

Under Shoigu, the informal overseer of the Defense Ministry was the oligarch Gennady Timchenko, who made his billions trading oil and securing state contracts. It was Timchenko, who had joint business interests with the Shoigu–Vorobyov clan, who in 2012 persuaded Vladimir Putin to move Shoigu from the Ministry of Emergency Situations over to the Ministry of Defense. A source for The Insider said that not a single key appointment in the military department went through without the oligarch’s approval, and that at special events, Timchenko and his wife always sat at the same table as Shoigu and the defense minister’s inner circle.

As a rule, those present also included DVKR head Nikolai Yuryev, Putin’s sometimes-rumored “successor” Alexei Dyumin, Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov, major Defense Ministry contractor Anton Abdurakhmanov, and the “glamorous general” Timur Ivanov (who is now serving a 13-year prison sentence).

DVKR oversees the Defense Ministry’s central apparatus, the General Staff, and commanders of the branches of the armed forces. Military counterintelligence officers are stationed in every military district and are attached to Russian military bases in Abkhazia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Transnistria, and Syria. In addition, the DVKR’s First Service conducts counterintelligence work within the GRU and the SVR, as intelligence officers are classified as military personnel. However, the actual practice of counterintelligence is perhaps not the department’s main mission.

Military counterintelligence maintains an extensive agent network within the Defense Ministry and provides operational support for criminal cases involving embezzlement among the troops, at military facilities, and within the structures of Rosoboronexport and the National Guard. This work allows DVKR to keep the entire army and navy under constant surveillance — which is important for Putin, who views the military with distrust.

With the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, DVKR “special officers” were integrated into joint operational groups in the occupied territories. “There is an enormous amount of work — theft at all levels, starting with soldiers and warrant officers stealing gasoline and diesel fuel, and ending with commanders of districts, fleets, and armies, who take kickbacks for awarding state contracts or inflate prices during procurement and pocket the difference. Since the launch of the ‘special military operation,’ cases have been investigated involving the theft of weapons and ammunition, desertion, surrender, self-inflicted wounds to obtain monetary compensation, criminal offenses related to drunkenness, drug use, and much more. On top of that, the leadership has tasked us with the patriotic education of schoolchildren and students, and people are being pulled away from real work,” a source in the DVKR told The Insider.

“The Belgorod kolkhoz farmer”

The new head of the FSB’s DVKR, Ivan Tkachev, is originally from the village of Borisovka in Belgorod Region, but most of his relatives were born in western Ukraine. For example, his mother, Valentina Tkachenko, lived almost her entire life in Borisovka but never learned to speak Russian. In 2018, journalists caught up with Valentina. The resulting article described how Tkachev “was secretly referred to at the Lubyanka as ‘the collective farmer from Belgorod.’ In the Chekist inner circle, the ‘collective farmer’ mainly dealt with organizational issues, participated in arrests, and his duties also included covering for subordinates after drunken car races through the capital and brawls in restaurants. As one of the officers confessed to me: ‘After the third shot of vodka, we see Chechen terrorists and American spies everywhere.’”

However, speaking Ukrainian during her interview, Tkachev’s mother countered that “Vanya is not a collective farmer. He read a lot of books, was interested in history, was an exemplary pioneer. Half of the girls in his class were in love with him. Tell me honestly, is he having a good time in Moscow? He's a good-looking boy.” guy.

The “good-looking boy” made his way into the central apparatus on Lubyanka thanks to his acquaintance with once-powerful FSB General Oleg Feoktistov, nicknamed General Fix. They served together in a border unit in Karelia, and when Igor Sechin instructed Fix to create the Sixth Service within the FSB’s Internal Security Directorate, he brought Tkachev with him.

As a source from the Sixth Service said, initially, “No one took Ivan Ivanych seriously. There were jokes about how he plays hockey in an amateur league and the guys are afraid to check him into the boards. Now, as you understand, the jokes are over, and his last name is spoken in a whisper.”

Incidentally, The Insider recently published a piece on how Tkachev plays as the captain of HC Buran, whose skaters include Vladimir Putin’s aide-de-camp, an auditor from Rosneft, and several officers from the FSB and the GRU. Tkachev’s wife, who quickly rose through the ranks in the administration of the Odintsovo district of Moscow Region, heads Buran’s cheerleading group. In Odintsovo, Olga Anatolyevna oversees all schools and chairs the commission for the protection of minors’ rights. On Dec. 16, at a school in her district, a 15-year-old neo-Nazi stabbed to death a fourth-grade student, Kobiljon Aliev, and Putin had to offer condolences to the president of Tajikistan. However, there was no reporting about Tkacheva’s resignation.

The couple spend their vacations either at Gazprom’s Polyana resort near Sochi or in Karelia with Tkachev’s younger brother, Vitaly Tkachev, who serves there as a border guard. Vitaly’s son Denis joined the naval infantry and is based in the secret settlement of Sputnik near Murmansk. A source from Borisovka said that Denis had experienced some form of service-related trouble a couple of years ago and was summoned by an FSB investigator, but apparently his uncle stepped in to resolve the problem.

The general’s daughter, Anna, married a young security officer named Vladislav Konev, who was also born in Borisovka. The wedding was held at the Barvikha Luxury Village, where millionaires and show business stars celebrate milestone events.

The Tkachev name first surfaced in the media in 2013, when the Sixth Service carried out a search of the apartment of Yevgenia Vasilyeva, the secret wife of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. The “masked show” took place as part of a high-profile criminal case involving large-scale fraud at Oboronservis, which Vasilyeva had previously headed.

In reality, the trigger was not theft at Oboronservis but a conflict between Igor Sechin and Serdyukov that arose in the early 2010s over a multibillion-dollar contract to build two helicopter carriers for the Russian navy. At the time, Sechin chaired the board of the United Shipbuilding Corporation and intended to sign a contract with South Korea’s Dokdo, while Serdyukov and then-president Dmitry Medvedev, who backed him, bypassed Sechin and concluded an agreement with France’s Mistral.

According to sources, Sechin was beside himself with rage and demanded that compromising material be gathered on Serdyukov (nicknamed “the furniture maker”) even though the deal with the French had been approved by Putin himself. From Tkachev’s office on Kolpachny Lane, information about the supposed “wealth” of Serdyukov and Vasilyeva was leaked to the press, with inexpensive costume jewelry presented as diamonds.

Serdyukov, who had been accused of negligence, fell under an amnesty, while Yevgenia Vasilyeva was kept on the hook until the very end. Instead of a suspended sentence, as the defense had expected, she was given five years in a penal colony. In reality, however, she spent just 34 days behind bars and was released on parole. Ultimately, although five people were indeed imprisoned in connection with the Oboronservis case, after the annexation of Crimea France refused to deliver the helicopter carriers to Russia, and they were sold to Egypt instead.

Notably, phone billing records of General Tkachev revealed the number of prosecutor Vera Pashkovskaya, who has served as state accuser in many high-profile court cases — including the Vasilyeva case. Rumors that judges and prosecutors receive instructions from the offices of the Sixth Service on Kolpachny Lane had circulated before, and whether by coincidence or not, the year after the Vasilyeva trial ended, Pashkovskaya was awarded an honorary certificate as the best employee of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Sechin’s battering ram, Mishustin’s brother-in-law, and the “king of cashing out”

After that, acting on Sechin’s instructions, Tkachev oversaw the arrests of Kirov Region Governor Nikita Belykh, Sakhalin Region Governor Alexander Khoroshavin (who was affiliated with figures close to Gazprom), Komi Republic Governor Vyacheslav Gaizer (described as being close to billionaire Viktor Vekselberg), and Lieutenant General Denis Sugrobov, the head of the Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption, who had attempted to recruit an officer from the Sixth Service (during Sugrobov’s interrogation, his deputy, General Boris Kolesnikov, committed suicide).

After becoming head of the FSB Economic Security Service’s “banking” Directorate “K” in 2016, Tkachev “took down” Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, who had allegedly hinted to Sechin about needing a $2 million bonus in exchange for a favorable decision on the purchase of Bashneft. The “Sechin special forces” steamroller also crushed Customs Service chief Andrei Belyaninov (who had once served with Putin in the KGB), former Minister for Open Government Affairs Mikhail Abyzov (who was close to Medvedev), the owners of the Summa Group, the Magomedov brothers, Senator Rauf Arashukov, and American investor Michael Calvey.

However, Tkachev gained wide notoriety only in 2017, when Serpukhov District head Alexander Shestun released recordings in which the general pressured him to submit to the will of Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov and resign voluntarily. Otherwise, as Tkachev put it, “they’ll bury you before the elections,” “they’ll dig up dirt and jail you…don’t you want to live?”

Earlier, Shestun had helped Tkachev collect compromising material on corrupt officials and security officers in the Moscow Region and naively counted on the FSB officer’s backing. In the end, however, Shestun himself was sent to a penal colony for 15 years. Even before his imprisonment, Shestun told a reporter from The Insider that Tkachev had everything sewn up at every level, and that it was enough for him to snap his fingers for any verdict to be delivered.

Shestun’s words are borne out by Tkachev’s phone billing records, which were obtained by The Insider. In addition to prosecutor Vera Pashkovskaya, the general’s calls include numbers belonging to senior officers from other FSB services, investigators, officials, top managers of major Russian state corporations, and successful businesspeople linked to the supply of oil, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment. Among them were businessman Alexander Udodov, the brother-in-law of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

As media outlets reported, Udodov was actively involved in VAT fraud schemes when Mishustin headed the Federal Tax Service (2010-2020). For example, in 2011 Udodov’s name appeared in a high-profile criminal case involving the theft of 2 billion rubles ($64.5 million at the time) under the guise of VAT refunds, and his home was searched. Investigators suspected that Mishustin’s brother-in-law was the organizer of the fraudulent scheme, but he was soon reclassified as a witness while other participants received real prison sentences.

In a 2020 investigation, Alexei Navalny revealed that Udodov often acted as a front man, registering elite real estate along the Rublyovka Highway worth hundreds of millions of rubles in his own name and then gifting it to Mishustin. Today, Udodov is known as the “mushroom king,” having taken the helm of the Agrogrib holding and secured a dominant position in that market.

Another phone number in Tkachev’s billing records is of particular interest — that of the shadow banker Yevgeny Dvoskin. A native of Odessa, Dvoskin moved with his family to Brighton Beach in 1977 and previously went by the surname Slusker. In the United States, Slusker was arrested several times and served time for car theft, making death threats, document forgery, diesel fuel fraud, and securities scams. At the request of the FBI, Slusker was detained in Monaco and faced up to 25 years in prison, but lawyers he hired found legal loopholes and secured his release.

Slusker promptly relocated to Russia, changed his name, and, using documents indicating that he was a resident of Rostov-on-Don, settled in Moscow. In the capital, Dvoskin-Slusker took control of several small banks and, through shell companies, cashed out more than 500 billion rubles. According to investigators, some defiant bank owners were brutally beaten. The Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case, but Dvoskin fled abroad. However, the fugitive later turned up near the office of the notorious crime boss Ded Khasan at the Writers House on Moscow’s Pirogovskaya Street, where police surveillance was in place. However, officers from Tkachev’s Sixth Service, who were protecting Dvoskin, prevented the shadow banker’s arrest. Dvoskin did claim, however, that he himself had become a victim of extortion by Interior Ministry officers — and that that was the reason he had been placed under state protection.

Later, Dvoskin resurfaced in Crimea as a shareholder in Genbank and a founder of the Crimea Revival Foundation. He even had a personal handler from the Internal Security Directorate of the FSB’s Crimea branch, Alexei Bragin, whose phone number also appears in Tkachev’s billing records. In addition to this handler, the banker’s contacts included senior Crimean officials, Rosgvardiya generals, and businesspeople close to Ramzan Kadyrov.

These days, Dvoskin’s Bentley is often seen in Moscow. He is a regular at private parties attended by major bankers and continues to move around with a security detail.

On a separate domestic front, it appears that new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and his team of accountants have carried out a thorough audit and determined where the gray financial flows of the Timchenko–Shoigu era had been going — which units were stealing the most, and where 30 percent of the fuel and lubricants supplied by Rosneft for the army’s needs ended up leaking out. It cannot be ruled out that new arrests and prison sentences will begin very soon following a very familiar script: a visit by Tkachev to Sechin with a folder, media leaks, searches, and footage of operational surveillance suddenly being broadcast on all of Russia’s federal television channels.

Purges may also take place in the National Guard — within the DVKR structure exists military unit No. 3600, which directly oversees this security agency. At present, three National Guard generals are already under investigation for taking bribes in exchange for awarding state contracts. The Insider reported on how the commander of this unit, Lieutenant General Vyacheslav Ryazansky, evaded court bailiffs for 20 years, while his successor, Gleb Kurbatsky, narrowly avoided prison for the loss of classified documents. There are, however, expected difficulties here: according to a source for The Insider, former Putin bodyguard Viktor Zolotov, who heads the National Guard, throws tantrums at the sight of military investigators and DVKR special officers.

Of course, it should also be added that after Tkachev’s transfer to the DVKR, Igor Sechin did not lose control over Directorate “K” of the FSB’s Economic Security Service, which oversees the entire country’s financial system. Following Tkachev’s transfer, his former post was taken by a representative of the so-called Voronezh clan, Alexei Trukhachev, who previously served as deputy head of the FSB’s Directorate “M.” Trukhachev’s elder brother, Sergei, works as vice governor of Voronezh Region and, as part of a national project, is overseeing the spending of 6.1 billion rubles ($77.7 million) allocated for road construction.

At the same time, two more representatives of the clan took up key positions at Lubyanka: Alexei Komkov became head of the FSB’s Fifth Service and now runs spy residencies abroad, and Albert Stepygin, a former Internal Security Directorate official, was appointed as Komkov’s deputy.

Both began their service at the FSB directorate for Voronezh Region before moving to Moscow. General Komkov, like Tkachev, plays amateur hockey, while Stepygin’s wife, as The Insider reported, extracts sand and gravel in Vladimir Region together with a Lithuanian national.

The clan is overseen by a Voronezh native, FSB State Secretary Alexander Kupryazhkin, who took up the post in the mid-1990s thanks to his close ties with Sechin. The Insider was unable to reach Tkachev — his phone number turned out to be blocked.

Finally, in an added twist, while this piece was being prepared a car was blown up on Moscow’s Yasenevaya Street. Inside was Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, head of the General Staff’s Directorate for Operational Training, who died at the scene from his injuries. Personal responsibility for the security of the Defense Ministry’s leadership rests with the head of the FSB’s military counterintelligence division. And yet, no information indicating that General Tkachev is facing professional consequences in connection with the failure has been made public.