19.01.2004

(Translation and comments by burtsev.ru)

Sergei Petrov is a former military. Since his retirement from the army in 1993, Petrov was a businessman in St. Petersburg. Because of his business he established close relations with the leadership of the City Mayor’s Office. In 1997 he permanently settled in Austria. Since October 2003 he and his family live in hiding abroad. In Petrov’s words, he “was set up big time” and has to hide to avoid physical elimination. Below is the text of one conversation with Petrov.

-Sergei, can you tell who set you up and why they want to eliminate you?

- There is a group of people, or a society, don’t know how to call them correctly. They set up some other people, who are often referred to a “the Petersburgers” or “the Kremlin Checkists.” Only I do not want to give any of their names. So they were conned out of 39 million euros. It was done in such a way that they now think I did this. And now they want me to return this money, which I did not take. As to those who really set them up, they need that I disappeared forever. This is why I am sought.

-Let’s proceed in order. How did this group or society , as you call them, set up the Kremlin chekhists, who you do not want to call by their names?

- As a matter of fact, it was very simple, even primitive. They were paying the Kremlin guys for protecting their business [paying for krysha: criminal slang for protection].

-And what kind of business do they have?

- All kinds of offshore schemes, operations with foreign real estate, also Afghan diamonds, and drugs too.

-Can you be more specific about the last?

- More specific? Well, this is done through military channels: transportation, aerodromes, bases, troops: in Tajikistan, Georgia, namely in Adzharia, in Kosovo they flied as late as last summer. They have serious contacts in Afghanistan, also with ethnic Albanian groups in Italy, and since the early 1990s in Germany, in the Western Army Group.

- Are you saying that in the Kremlin they give protection to this kind of business?

-Well, how should I put it? There is all kind of people in there. They all say that they are for the President. But I just know that Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin] does not know anything about it.

- I see, go on.

- So they were paying to the offshore accounts they were told to. There were other businessmen paying to the same accounts: importers, gas traders who were under the Kremlin “roof” too. All in all, $50 million, or more precisely, 39 million euros had accumulated on those accounts. The accounts were managed electronically. In short, they kidnapped a man in Moscow who knew the codes, pumped him with a psychotropic substance—so-called truth vaccine—got the codes from him and transferred the money to other off shores, then somewhere in Bahrain, and then nobody knows where to. In short, two days later, when this was noticed, it was all over.

-What about the man they kidnapped?

- Two weeks later he was found in some village in Byelorussia. He does not remember anything and has become almost an invalid. This is natural after what they did to him.

- Why did the people in the Kremlin decide that it was you who took the money?

- Because only two men were assigned to manage those accounts: the man they kidnapped and myself. They believe that we either somehow conspired, or—considering his present state—it was I who did this all and the kidnapping was a ruse to put them on the wrong track. Besides, they just do not believe that the people who really set them up could have taken such a risk just to con them out of $50 lemons [lemon is slang for one million]. It’s just not a serious sum of money. In the Kremlin they just don’t know these people. They don’t understand that they set them up not for money, though this could be too. But the main reason is that they would never go under any other “roof”—even the Kremlin--because they already have one: the Americans. They simply pretend they are loyal to the Kremlin. I know them well and I know what they really think of Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin]. 2 From their side it was politics, so to speak, a sort of self-assertion: see, we gave our money to these simpletons and now had taken from them much more and conned all of them.

- Who are these people? Can you prove that they are involved in something criminal?

-If you mean legally, in the court of law, well, I don’t know. But those who are supposed to be in the know, they do know these people. So I can name them. Will you?

-I will if you speak in the way of supposing rather than asserting things.

Very well, let me suppose, not assert. The people who organized this con job are: Vladimir Ilyich Filin, Alexei Alexandrovich Likhvintsev and his wife Liusya, that is Liudmila Viktorovna Rozkina, from the former agentura [secret intelligence network]. Then, Yakov Abramovich Kosman, also from agentura, he is now Israeli citizen. Also Alfonso Davidovich, citizen of Venezuela. In the 1970s he studied in the Soviet Union, afterwards in Eastern Germany and, naturally, was recruited. He is now a banker for FARC. It’s a sort of communists guerillas or narco terrorists in Colombia. In short, they all live in Europe: Alfonso in Munich, Vladimir in Switzerland, Alexei with Liusya in England, Yakov in Nice. From there they do their business, I mean, manage it. Alexei and Vladimir have very serious contacts in the Ministry of Defense. They also have associates, kind of junior partners. There is one Valery Nikolaevich Lunev. He lives in Holland and, by the way, is married to Dudaev’s relative Fatima. In their society Lunev is responsible for Tajiks and also for security. He always, should I say, provides radical solutions, regarding the people who stand on their way.

--What do you mean by “radical solutions”?

--Well, he solved the question with Sangak Safarov and Faizullah Saidov 3  when it was decided to mop them up; then with Lyosha the Hunchback, drug dealer in the Pamirs, their competitor. He was blown up in 1994. Then in ’96 it was Ruslan Labazanov 4  and Usman Imaev. 5 And many other things happened. But mainly it’s poison, cardiac arrest, or man disappears and that’s it. I believe it was Valera’s men who kidnapped and got the information from that man in Moscow when they were conning the Kremlin guys. There is one Anton Victorovich Surikov in that society. He considers himself a great intellectual. I am sure he was the ideologist, so to speak, of that swindle.

-Why do you think so?

-You see, the rest of them are not into politics. But for Anton politics is his business. He is an experienced provocateur and surrounded himself with the likes of himself.

-Who do you have in mind?

-Just take Alexander Prokhanov, chief editor of newspaper Zavtra. Through him and the well-known Stas Belkovsky, Surikov at one time was building relations with Berezovsky against Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin]. Or take Audrius Butkevicius. In the end of the 1980s he organized armed underground in Lithuania--the Department of National Defense. Do you remember the events of January 1991 at the TV Center in Vilnus, when people were killed? Well, he was responsible for this. At the time he was a double agent, American and ours. For this he was made afterwards the defense minister when Lithuania became independent. Later they fired him and even imprisoned for bribes, but he paid his way out of prison. Now he is in Georgia. Together with Badri Patarkatsishvili he had organized the “revolution of roses” as they called it. Not that eccentric Saakashvili, but they made it. For Audrius revolutions is a kind of hobby. 6 Anton was his controller. Anton himself is now in some kind of silly business. He sells [import] quotes on chicken legs, “Bush’s legs” they call it. On the surface everything is legal, in the sense that he always can say that money for his political media projects come from the chicken business rather than from drugs. In short, it's a cover.

-Anton Surikov is well-known person, assistant to the former first vice-premier Yuri Masliukov, and a prominent political specialist close to the Communist Party.

-Which Communist Party, are you kidding? He doesn’t call the communists other than pederasts. I’ve known him since Afghanistan. They all served there: Anton, Valera, Alexei, Vladimir. There was also one Ruslan Saidov. They enjoyed special status, were in contact with open Dushmans [Mujahideen], with Masud’s emissaries, Ismail Khan’s people, even with Arabs. 7 They behaved as plain marauders. There were so many complaints; it was a complete disgrace, his pockets always full of hard currency. Just imagine [hard currency] in those times! 8 They stayed out of trouble because their commanding officer, Leonid Leonidovich Kosyakov, nicknamed “Slon” (the Elephant), shared [the loot] with others. I think Anton went over to the Americans already back then.

-What do you mean?

-He has a distant relative in the United States who, basically, held very high post in the CIA and was in Peshawar in the 1980s. Anton always kept this fact in secret, back in the Soviet time and later on. After all, he occupied very high positions in the Department, in the government and in the Duma.  9 Just imagine, he worked in all these high-level jobs and nobody cared! As a matter of fact, our bosses used his connections as the informal channel of communication with the Americans. That’s why Anton could have his way. And later on it was Anton who groomed Basaev in Abkhazia as early as in 1992. Everyone knows about this. Even nowadays, last summer he called Basaev on the satellite phone in my presence. He sounded very friendly: “Shamil, dear brother, I hug you…”

-What did they talk about?

- About some shadowy money dealings with the Libyans, and Adnan Hashoggi too. It’s a famous Saudi, international arms merchant. They also have ties with Prince Turki, former boss of Saudi intelligence. Vladimir [Filin] and Alexei [Likhvintsev] made Anton responsible for political ties with Americans, Arabs, and our communists and oligarchs too.

-What our communists and oligarchs have to do with all this?

- Well, take for instance Alexander Khloponin, the Krasnoyarsk Governor and oligarch. When Anton was in the government he already had dealings with him regarding “Norilsk Nickel.” They constantly negotiated something in the restaurant “Izumi” across the Korean Embassy, the jamming device working at full capacity. Then a year ago Anton together with YUKOS tried to privatize CPRF, but failed.

-How come?

- Khodorkovsky has a trusted man—Alexei Petrovich Kondaurov, retired General, Anton’s friend, and I think, his fellow countryman. Kondaurov is now a Duma deputy from CPRF. In the Soviet time he worked in the KGB under Philipp Bobkov, on the dissidents, that is. 10  So they pumped money in Ziuganov, got control over the communist press: Zavtra, Soviet Russia, the CPRF Internet. There they have one thrifty young man, Ilya Ponomarev. They began fighting the so-called “moles”: Semigin, Kuptsov. Anton almost became the head of the electoral staff of the CPRF. His buddy Anatoly Baranov was about to become the head of “Pravda,” but then changed his mind and became an assistant to Alyoshin, vice prime minister for the military industrial complex. In one word, they began parceling the electoral rosters of the CPRF and selling seats in them. But nothing came out of that. YUKOS was raided, and Ziuganov with his banker Victor Vidmanov appropriated all the money [they received from YUKOS]. Knowing Anton’s vindictiveness and something about Kondaurov’s role in cases like Petukhov’s, Rybin, in Samara where the truck with the MENATEP documents allegedly fell from the bridge and sank, I am surprised that Ziuganov and Vidmanov are still alive.

-Is it right?

-Ofcourse. The communists have conned many others. Should something happen, it would be hard even to decide who’s to blame. Last September this became clear only in respect to Yukos: [the communists] took their money but put on their electoral list only one Kondaurov instead of five candidates there were supposed to.

-Why only Kondaurov? What about Muravlenko?

- Muravlenko was running on his own. In short, in December, when the elections were over, it turned out that Ziuganov swindled everybody.

-Namely who?

- Khkomovskikh and Strekalov from TNC. 11 Amirkhanov, from Gutseriev, this is former offshore in Ingushetia and “Slavneft.” Also Bagdasarov from Pugachev, Gavrilov from Deribaska, Livshits from bank “Neftyanoi,” then Annensky – “Alba-Alians,” Agaev from “Yugneftprodukt,” Yermakov, Batchikov, Dayhes, Lugovskoy.

- Lugovskoy—is it the one who is a citizen of Belize? I believe he was dropped because the court decided he falsified the information about his place of work.

- Yes. Anton [Surikov] brought him to Vidmanov as early as last spring. But when it became known that he had dual citizenship there was a scandal. I witnessed it. Anton was called on the carpet: you’ve lost all sense of measure, they told him, the President has learned about it and is furious. Anton mumbled something, apologized, said he did not know about this. They laughed at him in the Kremlin and then took Lugovskoy off the ballot. But that happened later, without me.

- Is it true that the communists collected over $30 million for the elections?

-Yes.

- But where did all this money go?

- To offshores. But you have to ask Vidmanov and his sons, Vladimir and Oleg. There is also one Nikanorov, Ziuganov’s son-in-law.

- OK, Sergei, what else would you like to say?

- I guess this is it for now. We’ll see what happens next. 12 

Примечания

1  Published at http://www.compromat.ru/main/surikov/a.htm

2  Petrov’s opinion has been confirmed by the recent anti-Putin crusade in press by the alleged leaders of this organized criminal society (See newspapers Pravda-info and Zavtra, IPROG website). Vladimir Filin’s dictum “Putin is absolute evil” sums up their argument. (Zavtra , 06.05.05) http://www.zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/05/605/21.html

3  Two powerful leaders of the People’s Front , the largest pro-government paramilitary organization during the civil war in Tajikistan. Supposedly, killed each other in a shoot-out under unclear circumstances in March 1993. See this episode mentioned in the useful overview the civil war in Tajikistan by Sergei Gretsky:http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/programs/globalpartnerships/securityandterrorism/coalition/regionalrelations/ConflictBook/Gretsky.htm

4  Ruslan Labazanov, “Rambo,” Chechen warlord and career criminal. Thought to have had ties with the GRU. One of the leaders of anti-Dudaev opposition. Shot by his guard.

5  Usman Imaev. Chechen. In the 1980s worked in Angola (most likely in the system of GRU), was recruited by American and South African intelligence. Joined Chechen separatists, uder Dudaev served as Director of the Chechen National Bank, later Prosecutor General. Left politics after having been accused in ties with Russian secret services. Disappeared in 1996. According to the State Duma deputy Evgenii Loginov, Imaev was not only a key figure in Chechen drug industry, but in the so-called “Sodruzhestvo”--an international narco syndicate, allegedly set up by high-ranking representatives of secret services and party bureacracy after the fall of the Soviet Union. See: Evgenii Loginov's press-conference in Moscow, 30 October 2002: http://www.dpni.org/newnews31.htm

6  Adrius Butkevicius is a long-time associate of the Albert Einstein Institution, supported by the CIA. The organization specializes in “soft coups” methods and training. See Thierry Messan,” The Albert Einstein Institution: non-violence according to the CIA”: http://www.voltairenet.org/article30032.html

7  Ismail Khan—a powerful warlord in Western Afghanistan where the special GRU unit under Leonid Kosyakov was based; commands a strong following amongst ethnic Tajiks.

8  This description of Kosyakov’s unit has been confirmed by several sources. This special group of the GRU--stationed in the Soviet base in Shindand—had litera “N” for narcotics and was assigned to intercept caravans with drugs and arms. They intercepted “bad” caravans and let pass “good” ones. In both cases Kosyakov’s men could enrich themselves by bribes and marauding. According to one recent Ukranian publication, Group “N” operated under the personal protection of a high-ranking GRU general (according to our information, it was General Iurii Alexandrovich Gusev [d. 1992]) and was allowed to enter into unauthorized contacts with Western intelligence. See, Ivan Demidov. “Kto vydavlivaet sok iz nakolotykh apelsinov.” Obkom, Nov 16 2005: http://ru.obkom.net.ua/articles/2005-11/15.1647.shtml

9  For Surikov’s official biography see his page at IPROG: www.iprog.ru/cast/?id=8 (Russian only).

10  KGB Army General Philipp Bobkov was the head of the KGB Fifth Directorate in charge of fighting political crimes. Later, head of the security service for the oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky. Kondaurov held prominent position under Bobkov. Later worked for Menatep and Yukos: http://www.templetonthorp.com/en/news938 . Our source referred to Kondaurov as the “godfather of IPROG.”

11  Tatarstan Oil Company.

12  Next came his death. Five days later, on January 24, 2004, Sergei Petrov, alias Serge Rodin, was killed while driving his car in Cape Town, SA.