Patrushev also rivals Putin as a villain. Some believe the two ordered FSB officials to bomb apartment buildings in Moscow, killing between 200 and 300 residents in 1999, in order to blame Chechen terrorists and give Russia a pretext to unleash war on Chechnya. As a result, the popularity of then-Prime Minister Putin rose, helping him secure the Russian presidency in March 2000.

After Alexander Litvinenko accused Putin and Patrushev of orchestrating the bombings in his book “FSB Detonates Russia,” he was poisoned by radioactive chemical Polonium-210, an assassination that British Supreme Court Judge Robert Owen concluded was “probably approved by President Putin and his Chief of FSB, Patrushev.”

Both men have likely authorized the poisonings and killings of many Russian “enemies.” As Head of the FSB, Patrushev led a counter-terrorism program calling for the “liquidation of the leaders of the Chechen separatist movement.” Patrushev dispatched FSB operatives to hunt down and kill Chechen fighters, including Shamil Basayev in July 2006 and Aslan Maskhadov in March 2005.