Viktor Zolotov (70), the current director of the National Guard of the Russian Federation, or Rosgvardija, started with the KGB, or border guard, which fell under (in)glorious service, already in the army. Later, within the KGB, he transferred to the 9th Directorate, responsible for the protection of government officials.
This is how he found himself at a crucial moment in Soviet-Russian history. When a group of potentates tried to depose the President and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, protests broke out. They were also condemned by the then president of the Russian Federative Socialist Republic (the largest part of the Soviet Union), Boris Yeltsin. In front of the government’s White House in Moscow on August 19, 1991, he climbed onto a tank and used a megaphone to call on the soldiers to disobey the coup plotters. The coup failed, but the action precipitated the collapse of the USSR; Yeltsin became the President of the Russian Federation. And Zolotov? He towers over everyone in the famous photos on the tank.
Bodyguards at a historic event: Zolotov and Kotov with Yeltsin on a tank, then they guarded Putin and now lead Rosgvardiya (August 1991). | Profimedia.cz/ČTK/AP
He remained with the presidential guard, even when the KGB was abolished (reorganized into the FSB) and the 9th Directorate became independent, since 1996 it has been operating as the Federal Protection Service (FSO).
Mafia business
Meanwhile, Zolotov moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg to guard Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, Putin’s political mentor. Zolotov went boxing and judo with the then deputy mayor Putin and became his bodyguard. According to Nová Gazeta, city leaders were not entitled to state protection, Zolotov and his colleagues provided it to them through the Baltik-Eskort security company. However, it dealt with more than just protection: “Building balance and dividing spheres of influence between St. Petersburg representatives of the central government, law enforcement agencies, the mayor’s office, business (which was rarely transparent in those years) and directly criminal structures,” writes Novaya Gazeta. “There is evidence that Baltik-Eskort guarded the traffic of ‘black cash’ necessary for the operations in question.”
Vladimir Putin and National Guard Director Viktor Zolotov, 2016. | The Kremlin
In 1999, he was already in Moscow again as a bodyguard of Putin, who was briefly prime minister before replacing Yeltsin in the presidency. And he was the head of his security for thirteen years. In 2014, Putin made him deputy minister of the interior and commander of the Internal Troops of Russia, Voyennij magazine wrote.
In 2016, they became part of the National Guard, which Putin formed after the model of the Roman praetorians as a sort of personal army. According to estimates, it has about 400 thousand members, it falls directly under the president, who put Zolotov in charge.
The Garda has grown to an alleged 400,000 men, it is supposed to be in charge of border protection, terrorism, organized crime… In practice, they intervene against demonstrations or tried to build barricades when Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagnerian mercenaries marched on Moscow. And then – and after Prigozhin was killed – some of his units were absorbed by the Rosgvardija.
According to Novaya Gazeta and the Anti-Corruption Foundation Zolotov owns real estate worth several hundred million rubles, all in close proximity to residences attributed to Vladimir Putin.