![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/putins-kgb-spy-mentor-who-dared-to-criticise-despot-dies-of-mystery-disease/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/newspress-collage-20369030-1667993386321.jpg&description=VLADIMIR Putin's KGB spy mentor who was demoted for publicly criticising the tyrant has died of an unexplained "disease". Viktor Cherkesov is the latest of Putin's cronies to die in mysterious circumstances this year. Viktor Cherkesov, pictured left with Putin, has diedCredit: East2West Cherkesov was in charge of the KGB unit responsible for combating anti-Soviet propaganda in the 1980sCredit: East2West Ruthless Cherkesov, 72, was once in charge of crushing Soviet dissidents and was seen as crucial to Putin's rise to power before the pair's relations became strained. When Putin headed the FSB secret service before becoming prime minister, Cherkesov was installed as his trusted deputy. Earlier he had been in charge of law and order in St Petersburg when it became Russia's 'criminal capital' with a record for countless unsolved contract killings. At the time, Putin was deputy mayor. In 2007, Cherkesov suggested in a newspaper that the secret services were becoming corrupted under the now-Russian president. An outraged Putin blamed him for washing dirty linen in public, and hinted his longtime ally Cherkesov was hardly clean. He said: "I consider it incorrect to air such problems in the media. 'And if someone acts in this way, makes such claims about a war of the special services, he himself must first be impeccable.' At the time an agent and also a former agent working for Cherkesov - then Director of the Federal Drug Control Service - died mysteriously from "poisoning". Cherkesov was fired from this role in the wake of his criticism of the secret services under Putin. Some interpreted his demise and the poisonings as due to brutal turf wars among Putin's warring henchmen. Yet Putin did not want to lose him completely. Cherkesov - seen by one source as 'knowing where the bodies were buried over many years' - was made Head of the Federal Agency for the Supply of Weapons, Military, Special Equipment and Materials for a two-year stint. He later became an MP, but w){kind=link}
VLADIMIR Putin’s KGB spy mentor who was demoted for publicly criticising the tyrant has died of an unexplained “disease”.
Viktor Cherkesov is the latest of Putin’s cronies to die in mysterious circumstances this year.
Ruthless Cherkesov, 72, was once in charge of crushing Soviet dissidents and was seen as crucial to Putin’s rise to power before the pair’s relations became strained.
When Putin headed the FSB secret service before becoming prime minister, Cherkesov was installed as his trusted deputy.
Earlier he had been in charge of law and order in St Petersburg when it became Russia’s “criminal capital” with a record for countless unsolved contract killings.