Former Putin Ally Who Helped Russian Leader's Rise to Power Has Died

A long-time associate of Vladimir Putin who helped usher the Russian president into power, only to later fall out with him, has died at age 72, according to Russian media reports.

Viktor Cherkesov once served as a KGB officer in St. Petersburg. Between 1992 and 1998, he headed the security service's successor, the FSB, for the St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, during which time he became a close ally of Putin, the BBC reported.

Since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, there have been a number of deaths—some shrouded in mystery—of people connected to Putin.

No cause has yet been given for Cherkesov's death as Russian news outlet Rosbalt said that it followed a "serious illness."

Cherkesov caused controversy for an article he wrote in the newspaper Kommersant in October 2007. He criticized corruption among the security services, which were at the time led by Nikolai Patrushev, who is now secretary of Russia's Security Council.

The previous year, the agency Cherkesov had led investigated a case of massive furniture smuggling that implicated high-ranking FSB officers and was said to be connected to money laundering in the United States.

The probe led to the dismissal of top officials in the FSB, Customs Service and presidential administration, Radio Free Europe reported.

Putin was unhappy with the article and said there was "no need to make such information public." Cherkesov was eventually removed from his post in 2008 and became the head of the Federal Agency for Military Supplies.

Cherkesov later became a lawmaker for the Communist Party. While critical of Interior Ministry reforms in 2011-12, he mostly backed Putin's government and its decisions, per Radio Free Europe.

Russian deputy Aleksandr Khinshtein wrote on his Telegram social media channel that Cherkesov "was a wonderful person and a real statesman," adding, "eternal memory to him."

Newsweek reached out to the Communist Party for comment.

Cherkesov is among a number of high-profile Russians who have died since the start of the war in Ukraine.

In September, Ravil Maganov, chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil that criticized the invasion, was found dead after he plunged from a sixth-floor window of the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.

The same month, the former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute, Anatoly Gerashchenko, died after falling down several flights of stairs.

Gerashchenko, "fell from a great height," according to the university, which described his death in the Russian capital as an accident.

Meanwhile, the body of businessman Ivan Pechorin, a top manager for the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, was reportedly found dead in the city of Vladivostok on September 12.

Update 11/9/22, 9:20 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.