In mid-June, a shootout took place in the Food.Topi cafe, located on the Dnieper embankment in occupied Kherson. Two FSB officers and one contract soldier of the Russian army were killed. Another FSB officer and a serviceman from the Ministry of Defense were seriously wounded. A few days later, Aleksey Arestovich, an adviser to the office of the President of Ukraine, said that this was the work of Ukrainian partisans. Later, the Yahoo News news agency reported, citing a document from the Investigative Committee (IC), that the shootout was the result of a drunken squabble between Russian servicemen.
This incident was written not only by Russian and Ukrainian media, but also by many leading media in the world. It seemed that all the details of the incident were already well known. However, there was one mystery in this story. And because of her in the Moscow offices of high-ranking generals of the FSB, the Ministry of Defense and the Investigative Committee, the intrigue still does not subside: some do everything to keep the secret, others, wanting to take revenge on their opponents, seek to reveal it.
This secret is the name of another FSB officer who was relaxing that day in a Kherson restaurant. In documents released by Yahoo News from the criminal case, his role is described in just one line: “Unidentified soldier VOG-9 [временной оперативной группы] The FSB of Russia fled the scene.” “He just got scared and ran away. Inside [ФСБ] everyone knows who it is, but they do everything so that no one recognizes his last name. Because this whole story is one big shame. And for him, and especially for dad, ”explains a Russian intelligence officer familiar with the situation.
Important Stories found out the man’s name. It turned out to be the son of one of the most influential generals of the FSB.
Booze
The official version of the Kherson skirmish is set out in the certificate of the military investigation department for the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Investigative Committee. On June 17, Igor Sudin, a 32-year-old native of Makhachkala, along with his colleague, 28-year-old Sergei Obukhov from the village of Mugreevsky, Ivanovo region, were drinking at the Food.Topi cafe on the Dnieper embankment in Kherson. Sudin – senior operator of the calculation of unmanned aerial vehicles of the artillery reconnaissance battery; Lance Sergeant. Obukhov – commander of the sound-measuring reconnaissance platoon section of the artillery reconnaissance battery; sergeant. Both served under contract in the 8th separate artillery regiment stationed in Simferopol.
On the same day, a group of FSB officers were drinking in the same restaurant: Dmitry Borodin, lieutenant colonel of the Economic Security Service (SEB), Igor Yakubinsky and Sergei Privalov from the Special Purpose Center (CSN). “Data on the identity of the fourth serviceman of the FSB of Russia are being established,” the materials of the criminal case said.
Both companies “passed their time idly drinking liquor.” At about eight in the evening, two FSB officers did not like the fact that the contract soldiers were drinking in military uniform and were in the restaurant with weapons; they were remarked.
FSB officers chose the worst time and place for a quarrel. From the first day of the occupation of Kherson, the Russian army, instead of flowers and loaves promised by the FSB intelligence, from the local population, faced a large-scale partisan movement. At night, military patrols were subjected to constant attacks, residents of the city transmitted information about the deployment of the invaders to the Ukrainian army. In response, the Russian military staged a terror against civilians. People began to be kidnapped and tortured en masse.
“There [в кафе] all were boozy. When the skirmish began, the contractors began to demand that they be shown documents, ours answered something in the spirit of “who are you in general, go get some sleep.” As a result, one of the contractors pulled out his gun and started firing at the floor, demanding documents – either he thought that the DRG [диверсионно-разведывательная группа]or just overeat,” says an FSB officer familiar with the situation.
The one who pulled the pistol out of its holster was junior sergeant Sergei Obukhov. “After that, an employee of the FSB of Russia Privalov S.A. made an attempt to snatch a pistol from Obukhov’s hands, ”the materials of the criminal case say. Then Sergeant Igor Sudin decided to stand up for a fellow soldier: he grabbed an AK-74 assault rifle and opened fire on the offenders. They started firing back. As a result, two FSB officers – Igor Yakubinsky and Sergey Privalov – as well as contract soldier Sergey Obukhov died on the spot. The wounded Dmitry Borodin and Igor Sudin were sent to the hospital of the Ministry of Defense in Sevastopol.
In this conflict, only one person was not injured – the same “unidentified” FSB officer who escaped from the cafe.
General’s son
The name of the escaped FSB officer very quickly became known among the security forces. First of all, because of the big name. And for the same reason, even anonymous telegram channels that write about special services were afraid to name her: “Second Security Service Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Borodin was wounded in a Kherson cafe. His sidekick escaped from the bullets. And now there is a fierce struggle to forget the name of this secret man, and to smear off the SEB FSB, ”wrote the Infobomba channel.
Two sources of Important Stories in the FSB, who are familiar with the details of the Kherson shootout, named the name of “this secret man.” It turned out to be Evgeny Tikhonov, the son of the famous FSB Colonel General Alexander Tikhonov.
From 1998 to September of this year, that is, almost 25 years, Tikhonov Sr. headed the FSB Special Purpose Center. The TsSN was created on the basis of the legendary Alfa and Vympel special forces units. For many years, Tikhonov remained one of the most closed and influential generals of the FSB. In September of this year, he was dismissed from military service upon reaching the age limit. This happened just a couple of months after the drunken shootout in Kherson, but Important Stories sources insist that Tikhonov was going to leave even before this news.
Tikhonov Jr. serves in the SEB, in the “P” department, which oversees Russian industry. From the very beginning of the war, the FSB sent its employees to Ukraine. They should be engaged in operational work in the occupied territories. But for some FSB officers, these business trips have become an excellent opportunity to earn money (in Ukrainian cities there is a lot of abandoned property and assets that can be taken away), as well as to advance in the service. According to an FSB officer familiar with the situation, Tikhonov Jr. went to Ukraine “to become deputy governor of the Mykolaiv region. On the advice of the Pope.
However, the career plans of Yevgeny Tikhonov were first hindered by the army of Ukraine, which did not allow them to take the administrative center of the region – the city of Nikolaev. And then the hopes of the general’s son for a high position were finally buried by a shootout in a Kherson restaurant. Moreover, among the security forces, it is not so much the fact that drunken FSB officers got involved in a shootout with drunken contractors that is condemned, but the cowardly, according to colleagues, behavior of Tikhonov Jr.: he ran away from the restaurant, leaving his comrades. “He later said that he actually ran for help, but who will believe it now,” sighs the source of Important Stories in the FSB.
This incident aggravated the already furious undercover war between the Ministry of Defense and the FSB. Both departments accuse each other of incorrectly informing the Russian leadership about the potential of the Ukrainian army and assessing the mood within Ukrainian society, which ultimately led to the failure of the Russian offensive. In addition, according to the sources of Important Stories, the department of military counterintelligence, which oversees the Ministry of Defense, collected “tons of materials” to initiate criminal cases on mass theft in the Russian army on the eve of the war. But these materials are not yet being released in the Kremlin.
When the shootout happened, both sides of the conflict – both the FSB and the Ministry of Defense – tried to influence the Investigative Committee in order to sway the investigation to their side. The Investigative Committee eventually chose the side of the FSB: junior sergeant Igor Sudin became the key defendant in the criminal case.
Lieutenant Colonel TsSN Sergei Privalov, who was killed by Sudin, was buried in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. “He died in the line of military duty,” a local newspaper described his death. Junior Sergeant Sergei Obukhov was buried in the Crimea, where he left behind his wife and six-year-old son. The news portal 168.ru from Obukhov’s native Ivanovo region described his death as follows: “On June 17, 2022, the commander of the sound-metric intelligence department, Sergeant Sergey Obukhov, died while performing military service in the territories of a special military operation in the LDNR. During the fighting, he showed courage and bravery. At the cost of his own life, he saved his comrades, who, thanks to his feat, were able to get out of the encirclement.
