Sandpit general: Senior FSB official quietly does business with Lithuanian partners

Доступно на русском языке

The Lithuanian connection

The Vladimir region is home to dozens of quarries — both legal and illegal — where sand, gravel, kaolin, and decorative stone are mined. For those with the ability to establish a cooperative relationship with relevant government officials, the environmental prosecutor’s office, the FSB, and the police, it is a highly profitable business.

In April 2021, a company called Aleksnerud LLC was registered in the regional town of Alexandrov. Its founders included four local residents — among them the well-known artist Alexander Gunin, whose work is held in private collections across Europe, the United States, Canada, and Israel. By order the Vladimir region’s then-governor Vladimir Sipyagin, the company received a license to develop a 177.3-hectare site near the village of Konishchevo. Sipyagin’s successor, Alexander Avdeev, later granted Aleksnerud a lease on a 124.8 hectare site near Dvoynino. Machinery was soon brought in, and work began in earnest.

As soon as the company began generating revenue, the management of Aleksnerud LLC underwent changes: a Lithuanian citizen, Alexander Patutin, was added to the list of founders.

«There's this guy, Sergei Morozov, who's in charge over there. First, he brought in the Lithuanian, Patutin, and told everyone to treat him with respect. Then they pushed out the artist Gunin, but he was just a front — nobody ever saw him. Morozov replaced him with Olga Stepygina from Moscow. People started to complain, but he said she was from Lubyanka and there was no point in arguing. They immediately raised the authorized capital and gave her a 20% stake. This year, environmental authorities carried out their only inspection of the quarry since it opened — and found no violations. They found plenty elsewhere, but not at Aleksnerud,» a source told The Insider.

Patutin was born in Kaliningrad. In 1982, his parents moved to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic on a Komsomol work assignment to help build the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, and they ended up settling there permanently. After the collapse of the USSR, Patutin took Lithuanian citizenship and, on his parents’ advice, enrolled at the Obninsk Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering in Russia’s Kaluga Region. While he was studying, the EU demanded the closure of the Ignalina plant. Half the population of the nearby satellite town of Visaginas, where the Patutin family lived, lost their jobs, and many moved away. Patutin remained in Russia, but as a young nuclear engineer with a NATO-country passport, he couldn’t get hired anywhere.

In November 2012, Patutin turned to the quarrying business, becoming a co-founder of two companies in Alexandrov: Sand and Gravel Quarry Khoroshego LLC and Profnerud LLC. Soon thereafter, the foreign citizen also took charge of Nerud Resurs LLC and Sand Quarry Khoroshy LLC, mineral extraction interests in the Yaroslavl region. Patutin’s phone billing records indicate that he is actively engaged in business. Among his frequent contacts are quarry owners in the Kaluga and Tula regions, bulk cargo transporters, excavator and bulldozer dealers, and construction equipment repair specialists.

When asked how a foreign national like Patutin managed to gain access to an industry that even most Russians find closed off, a knowledgeable source for The Insider had no answer. During a court case involving accusations of unpaid taxes, Patutin identified himself as the chief engineer of Sand and Gravel Company Khoroshego, using the name Alexander Stanislavovich Patutin and giving his birthday as April 14, 1977. According to The Insider’s findings, there is no such person among Russian citizens — but there is among Lithuanian nationals.

Patutin’s wife, Yekaterina Kurilova, is also employed at the Sand and Gravel Company Khoroshego. According to Russian border crossing data, the couple visits Lithuania once a year and also travels to other EU countries. The Insider sent questions to Alexander Patutin’s email address, but he did not respond.

Patutin’s younger brother, Yevgeny, lives in Visaginas and works as an engineer at the now-shuttered Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. In a conversation with journalists from Latvian media outlet LRT, Yevgeny Patutin said he did not know what kind of business Alexander is involved in in Russia, or who his partners are. In 2019, Yevgeny ran for the city council on the electoral list of the Us, Visaginas party, but he was not elected. That same year, he visited his brother in Moscow — and judging from photos on his social media, he appears to hold pro-Russian views.

Nevertheless, according to Yevgeny: “We worry about Sasha. How is he doing over there? I can’t go to Russia or Belarus myself — I'd have problems at work. And those photos on social media — that was just me clicking the wrong button.”

Border crossing records show that even after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Alexander Patutin has continued traveling regularly to the Baltic states. He also flies to more exotic destinations. In 2025 alone, he has visited the UAE, Sri Lanka, and Kyrgyzstan. In 2024, the list comprised Qatar, Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia.

The chekist’s family

Patutin’s business partner, Olga Stepygina, is the wife of Albert Stepygin — the head of the FSB’s ultra-secret 2nd Directorate of the Internal Security Service, which is responsible for hunting down spies and corrupt officials within the agency’s central apparatus at the Lubyanka.

As would be expected of the wife of a classified FSB officer, Stepygina shares little about herself. Before joining forces with Patutin, she had no prior business experience, though she previously worked as a lecturer at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy (The Insider has obtained her payroll records). When talking to strangers, she often introduces herself using different surnames: Isayeva, Ivanova, or Markova. Albert Stepygin also uses cover documents bearing the alias Albert Markov.

Stepygin began his career at the FSB department in Borisoglebsk (where a monument to the infamous Cheka head “Iron” Felix Dzerzhinsky was recently unveiled), then served in the FSB Special Purpose Center Vympel and later at the Moscow Border Institute (military unit 2426).

According to a source within the security services, Stepygin was brought into the so-called osobka (a classified internal division) by the once-powerful FSB General Oleg Feoktistov, known by the nickname “General Fix.” Feoktistov is considered to be the leader of the “border guards” clan within the FSB and is closely tied to Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.

The Stepygins own a 90-square-meter apartment in the Novosushchevskaya 15 residential complex, as well as a 438-square-meter commercial property on Altufyevskoye Highway, which they lease to a retail store. Parked in their garage is a Toyota Land Cruiser 200 worth 5 million rubles ($62,500). The general enjoys hunting in the Podolsk district of the Moscow region, an area controlled by crime boss Sergei Lalaki (a.k.a. “Luchok”). He is also frequently spotted at social events with officers from the FSB’s Vympel unit.

In February 2022, Stepygin organized the funeral of sniper Stanislav Kryukov, a member of the FSB’s Special Purpose Center, who was killed by a landmine in the early days of the full-scale war in Ukraine.

Stepygin’s daughter Yulia and son-in-law Nikita Brazhina also serve in the FSB. The couple live in the upscale Tikhvinskaya 14 residential complex, where apartment prices range from 50 to 130 million rubles ($625,000 to $1.6 million).

The Golunov case and the missing banker: Stepygin’s infamous history

In 2019, Albert Stepygin conducted an internal probe into the possible involvement of FSB officers in the arrest of journalist Ivan Golunov, who had been investigating Moscow’s «funeral mafia.» As part of a campaign against the reporter, police officers from the Western Administrative District of the Russian capital planted drugs on the reporter, and he was taken into custody. The case sparked widespread public outcry — media coverage exploded, and citizens staged protests in support of Golunov. Under mounting public pressure, all charges against him were dropped.

During the course of his investigation, Stepygin identified Colonel Marat Medoyev, from the office of Moscow FSB chief Alexei Dorofeev, as a key figure. All signs pointed to Medoyev having a commercial stake in the funeral business and possibly having «put out a hit» on Golunov. However, Medoyev was part of the powerful “St. Petersburg clan,” whose members had secured nearly all of the top posts within the FSB’s leadership.

As an FSB source told The Insider: “Albertich [Stepygin] went to the FSB director with a report, but got smacked down and was told to drop it. Medoyev was quietly ‘drained’ into the division for seconded FSB officers, and then Deputy Mayor of Moscow Maksim Liksutov hid him in his department. Later, Marat was moved again — this time as an adviser to the head of Mosenergo.”

In 2023, Stepygin and his deputy, Alexei Pinchuk, played a role in the arrest of Denis Karmanov, head of the “religious” division of the FSB’s 2nd Service, which is tasked with combating terrorism and extremism and has numerous agents embedded in political groups, religious organizations, and migrant communities.

Through an informant in the Catholic community, Colonel Karmanov learned about a lengthy legal battle between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow and a company called Affordable Housing LLC. The dispute concerned a church complex: the Saints Peter and Paul Church on Milyutinsky Lane. In an effort to take advantage of the situation, Karmanov enlisted senior FSB operative Yevgeny Lobanov from Directorate “M,” who had previously overseen the Interior Ministry’s Internal Security Directorate and was later tasked with monitoring arbitration courts.

The FSB officers promised to resolve the matter in the Catholics’ favor — for a fee of 20 million rubles ($250,000). But once they had the money, they stopped returning calls. Both colonels were put under surveillance, and FSB operatives discovered where part of the money was being kept. In the end, Karmanov and Lobanov were sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security prison.

There is yet another criminal case involving General Stepygin. In 2023, the scandal-ridden banker Vladimir Antonov — formerly the owner of the English football club Portsmouth — mysteriously vanished from his mansion in the Moscow suburbs. Antonov has a criminal record in Russia for financial offenses and is wanted in both the European Union and Ukraine.

In 2015, Lithuanian authorities secured the banker’s extradition from the United Kingdom over fraud at the bankrupt financial institution Snoras, where Antonov was accused of causing losses totaling €375.18 million. However, Antonov escaped custody and soon surfaced in the elite village of Aksinino a short drive west of the Russian capital along the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway. His father insists that Antonov was kidnapped from the mansion and possibly murdered.

An alternative theory posits that the banker owed $20 million to Russian business partners and, with the help of a Ukrainian passport under the name Vladimir Ivanov, fled to France, where he applied for political asylum. A photo surfaced online allegedly showing Antonov on a yacht surrounded by women. Notably, before allegedly leaving Russia, he reportedly had surgery to remove a large mole from his face.

In any case, Antonov left behind luxury apartments in Moscow and a high-end car collection that includes a Ferrari, an Aston Martin, and a rare Cadillac — all of which became the focus of a fierce dispute. The conflict drew in crime boss Vyacheslav Popov, a.k.a Slava Tagansky, notorious for his ties to Russia’s security agencies. Lawyers for Antonov released a series of messages exchanged by individuals involved in dividing up the banker’s assets. Among the names mentioned were both Slava Tagansky and his “partner and close associate” Albert Stepygin.

Olga Stepygina did not respond to questions about her involvement in the sand and gravel business. However, while examining her husband's phone contacts, The Insider discovered the number of Sergey Morozov, a co-founder of Aleksnerud LLC. According to The Insider, it was Morozov who brought both the Lithuanian national Patutin and Olga Stepygina into the company’s leadership. In the database of the Interior Ministry for the Vladimir region, Morozov is listed for special monitoring due to his past involvement in illegal timber trafficking. Nevertheless, rumors surrounding Morozov suggest he has close ties to the FSB and serves as a “supervisor” overseeing local quarries.

Another Stepygin contact associated with Aleksnerud is excavator operator Denis Govorov, who works at the quarry in Konishchevo. Taken together, the evidence suggests that Olga Stepygina is merely a nominal co-owner, while full control over the sand and gravel operation rests in the hands of her classified FSB-officer husband.

But that does not mean all is well for the Stepygin family. According to a source for The Insider, due to a sharp decline in both residential and road construction in Russia, Aleksnerud LLC’s revenues have dropped by 80%.

This report was prepared in association with LRT.