Putin Bestie-Turned-Foe Dead at 72 After ‘Severe Illness’

A Vladimir Putin-ally-turned-foe has died at the age of 72 after reportedly suffering from a “severe illness.” Viktor Cherkesov, the former head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, died Tuesday in St. Petersburg. The news was announced by lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein, who hailed Cherkesov on Telegram as a “wonderful person and true statesman.” Khinstein did not reveal a cause of death, though the Rosbalt news agency cited an undisclosed illness. Cherkesov started out in the KGB and later worked closely with Vladimir Putin at Russia’s Federal Security Service, but the two had a very public falling out in 2007 after Cherkesov penned an article exposing infighting among the country’s security services. He was subsequently fired from the Federal Drug Control Service and admonished by Putin, who said it was “wrong” to air the security services’ dirty laundry in the press and that anyone doing so “must first themselves be blameless.”