A source from the Cheka-OGPU told who Yevgeny Prigozhin was close with recently before his death. This is the former head of the criminal police of St. Petersburg, and then the chief federal inspector for the Northern capital, an employee of the Administration of the Russian Federation, the deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, an employee of the Russian government, Alexander Smirnov. He was previously considered a conductor of Prigozhin’s ideas in the RF AP. And with the outbreak of the war, he actively helped promote Prigozhin’s plan to recruit prisoners in colonies.
According to the interlocutor, Prigozhin and Smirnov began to interact especially often in the summer of 2023. It was on Smirnov’s recommendation that Prigozhin unexpectedly changed the leadership of his entire Security Service. Instead of Vladimir Ryzhakov, the SB was headed by Smirnov’s former subordinate at the St. Petersburg Main Internal Affairs Directorate and his close friend Mikhail Vatanin (pictured). Vatanin almost completely changed all the key representatives of the Security Council. And all this ultimately led to Prigozhin being blown up on the plane. Now Vatanin fully controls the heir to the leader of the Wagner PMC, Pavel Prigozhin.
As for Vladimir Ryzhakov (here he is in the photo at the moment of receiving his “lawyer’s certificate”), he mysteriously disappeared. Here the opinions of sources are divided. Some believe that he is no longer alive. Others are sure that Ryzhakov went to the “deep bottom”, fearing for his life. Ryzhakov knows absolutely everything about the dark affairs of Prigozhin and his circle, including facts not yet known to the general public.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”