Russian Investigative Outlets Report FSB Purge Tied to Putin Ally Rotenberg's Rivals

Sergei Alpatov, who ran the Federal Security Service's Economic Security Service, is out of his job. That much is not disputed.

According to The Daily Beast, which cites the independent investigative outlet iStories and the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, Alpatov's departure is the opening move in a wider Kremlin security shake-up. Some accounts say he resigned for health reasons. Others, per the same reporting, say he was pushed out for investigating figures tied to Arkady Rotenberg, the billionaire construction magnate and longtime Putin friend from their St. Petersburg days.

An unnamed source described to iStories what The Daily Beast calls a "palace coup" between rival factions inside Russia's security services. Those services, the reporting says, have been handed increasingly unchecked authority as the war in Ukraine drags on, creating exactly the kind of internal turf war now playing out.

The alleged trigger goes back to July, when Konstantin Makhov, a longtime project manager for Rotenberg's businesses, was arrested on embezzlement charges. A month before that, Ilya Traber, another businessman described in the reporting as a Rotenberg associate with alleged organized-crime ties, was arrested on murder charges connected to a 2020 shooting.

Then the reversals came. In late August, Traber was released and the murder charges against him were dropped. Makhov was also released, though he remains under house arrest, according to Russia's state-run TASS news agency.

The Daily Beast reports that both releases came on Putin's own order, after he was reportedly convinced by figures in his circle that someone was targeting Traber and Rotenberg to chip away at their influence and, by extension, his own authority. Alpatov, according to a source quoted by VChK-OGPU, took the fall. "They removed him literally overnight," the source said. "He already understood everything a week ago and told his inner circle about it. He's currently on vacation, from which he won't return to the FSB."

The same source told VChK-OGPU that "the full list of resignations will be known in October," adding that October is typically when FSB personnel changes are made. That list, per iStories' reporting cited by The Daily Beast, could include Alexander Bortnikov, who has served as head of the FSB since 2008. Bortnikov is 74. Sources cited say he has "long been asking to retire" and now spends much of his time at health resorts.

None of this is Kremlin-confirmed. Every load-bearing detail in this story traces back to anonymous sources speaking to a Russian independent outlet operating outside Russia, and to an anonymous Telegram channel that specializes in security-service leaks. Russia's opaque power structure makes this kind of reporting genuinely difficult to verify or debunk from the outside. Skeptics have a fair point when they note that émigré investigative outlets and anonymous security-adjacent Telegram accounts have their own incentives and blind spots, and that Kremlin insiders leak selectively to serve their own factional interests. That does not mean the reporting is wrong. It means it should be read as a well-sourced but unconfirmed account of infighting, not an established fact.

What is independently confirmed: Alpatov is out. Makhov is out of detention but under house arrest, per TASS. Traber had murder charges dropped, an unusual reversal that both iStories and VChK-OGPU tie directly to Rotenberg's influence reaching Putin himself.

Fox News's own reference material on Putin notes he has served for 21 non-consecutive years as Russia's president and has a long history tied to the security services, having been appointed director of the KGB's main successor organization before becoming president in 2000. That history is the backdrop against which any internal FSB reshuffling gets read, whether it is a genuine crack in Putin's inner circle or routine wartime personnel churn dressed up as high drama.

The next concrete marker is October, when the source cited by VChK-OGPU says the full resignation list becomes public. Whether Bortnikov actually steps down, and who Putin picks to run the FSB, will clarify whether this was a palace coup or a managed reshuffle.