Alexander Bortnikov

In December 2017 in an open letter published by Kommersant more than 30 Russian academics slammed Bortnikov for seeking to legitimize the Stalinist Great Purge because in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta published to mark 100 years since the establishment of the Cheka Bortnikov said the archives show that “a significant part” of the criminal cases of that period “had an objective side to them.”

On May 12, 2008, he was appointed Director of the FSB by President Dmitry Medvedev and is believed by some security analysts to be Medvedev's man.

In February 2007 Russian magazine The New Times wrote about the plan to murder Alexander Litvinenko with reference to "a source in the FSB": "People from the top management of the agency had taken part in the elaboration of the plan, maintains an FSB source. And, allegedly, FSB Director Patrushev knew about it. According to the same source, Head of the FSB Economic Security Department general-lieutenant Alexander Bortnikov had allegedly been appointed overseer of the operation." In May 2007 he was reported to have been implicated in a money-laundering case investigated by the RF Interior Ministry in connection with the murder of the Central Bank Deputy Head Andrey Kozlov.

From February 24, 2004, to May 12, 2008, he was Head of the Economic Security Service of FSB and a Deputy Director of FSB.

From 1975 to 2004 he worked in the KGB and its successors in Leningrad/Saint Petersburg. From June 2003 to March 2004 he was the Chief of the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast Federal Security Service (FSB) Directorate.

Bortnikov was born in Perm, Soviet Union. He graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers in 1973.

Alexander Vasilyevich Bortnikov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Бо́ртников ; born 15 November 1951) is a Russian official. He has been Director of the FSB since May 12, 2008. He belongs to the Siloviki of Putin's inner circle.