Putin's Bodyguards Rewarded with Land and Power

[dalton99a]

https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/putins-bodyguards/

Putin’s Bodyguards Rewarded with Land and Power
Written by Roman Anin

Once responsible just for his physical security, President Putin’s bodyguards now have impressive titles — and land worth many millions in Russia’s most expensive region. The workers and pensioners who previously held the property say they were swindled out of it.

Former bodyguards for Russian President Vladimir Putin have gained immense power in exchange for their unquestioned loyalty. Many have also accumulated vast wealth, exemplifying how Russia’s newly ascendant class has exploited a system meant to protect the old.

An investigation by Novaya Gazeta, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, shows who paid the price: more than 1,100 ordinary people who had worked for decades on a giant poultry plant outside Moscow.

Some were decorated World War II veterans whom the Soviet Union had promised lifetime employment and pensions. But in the newly independent Russian Federation, there can be no such guarantees. During the 1990s, these workers say, a small clique of powerful businessmen and criminals used manipulation, forgery, intimidation, and even beatings to seize their land.

The dozens of hectares were then divided into smaller plots and eventually doled out to a cohort newly empowered by Putin: officers in the Federal Guard Service and the Presidential Security Service.

[zuul]

1. This helps to illustrate why it would be very difficultt to assassinate Putin.

Whether attempted by his close associates, other officials, or the Russian people. He is a smart little cockroach and I would bet that he has game-out multiple scenarios in case there is an attack against him.