Translated material
The business trip is over
The head of the Gazprom security service, Sergei Ushakov, returns to the FSO
As Vremya Novostei learned, in recent days Sergei Ushakov, deputy chairman of the board and general director of the concern’s security service, has been working at Gazprom. In the new year, he will return to the position of first deputy head of the Federal Security Service. It was from this position that he joined the concern four years ago, becoming the supervisor of personnel issues and ensuring the security of the group. Before the Federal Security Service, Mr. Ushakov worked for 28 years in Vladimir Putin’s native KGB department for Leningrad and the region (now the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region). Gazprom does not officially comment on the information, but informed sources of Vremya Novostei claim that the decision was made at the “very top” and is therefore final. However, the name of the successor to this post is still unknown, and it is possible that the choice has not yet been made.Mr. Ushakov came to Gazprom immediately after one of the largest purges of the concern’s management in recent times. In February 2003, the head of the company, Alexey Miller, managed to defeat the internal opposition in the person of Deputy Chairman for Security Sergei Lukash and his supporters - General Director of Mezhregiongaz Nikolai Gornovsky and President of SIBUR Dmitry Mazepin - in a tough hardware struggle. All of them were fired from the group. Posts in the subsidiaries went to people close to Mr. Miller - the head of the department of gas processing, marketing and sales, Kirill Seleznev, and the ex-head of the St. Petersburg port, Alexander Dyukov. And for security, they selected a reliable person in the FSO - Sergei Ushakov. His activities were completely invisible to outside observers, but within Gazprom he developed a reputation as a very tough leader. There were no apparent reasons for his return to the FSO. However, it is known that the “authorities” practice sending their employees to high positions in large state-owned companies (Mr. Ushakov’s predecessor, Sergei Lukash, was also “seconded” to Gazprom from the FSO). As a rule, in order to ensure rotation, they are limited to 3-5 years.