Occupied Crimea. Vladimir Putin’s arrivals. A former security guard at his dacha on the background of the Russian president’s arrivals

Vitaly Bryzhatyy told Dozhd TV journalists that he was born and grew up in Kamchatka. His wife, Anna, comes from Crimea. Hence the decision to move to the peninsula in 2015, after the illegal Russian annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory.

Bryżatyj first worked in a special unit of the Russian OMON police, then he was employed in the Federal Protection Service, responsible for ensuring the security of the authorities in the Kremlin.

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The man was employed as a cynologist. His work with the dogs consisted of examining the area to see if there were any explosives there.

In Crimea, his duties included protecting the residence (called dacha) of the Russian leader. The dacha is located in Oliwa. There were estates nearby where the former president and prime minister, and currently the deputy head of the Security Council, stayed. Dmitry Medvedev, as well as Vitaly Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service. There was no access to the Black Sea in this place. Residents were banned from entering nearby areas.

– Putin does not trust anyone, even his bodyguards, who may not know where he is, whether he is nearby or not, he told the independent station Bryzhatyy. – (Security workers – ed.) can tell that (the president – ed.) is resting in this particular place. Then everyone is running, there is confusion, but he may be somewhere completely different at that time – he added.

The man explained that the Federal Protection Service has a subunit of the SBP (president’s security service), which Putin trusts the most and which accompanies him during his trips.

– Before Putin’s visit to Crimea, his arrival is announced simultaneously at two airports – in Sevastopol and Simferopol (the distance between them is over 100 kilometers – ed.), helicopters arrive at these places, National Guard convoys arrive, and the president may not arrive at all by plane. It may arrive by another means of transport, for example by sea, said the former bodyguard, adding that “the president’s safety Russia “is at the highest level because he is very afraid for his life.”

– When Putin came to Sevastopol, the local governor (Mikhail Razvozaev – ed.) spent several weeks in one of the state dachas, undergoing quarantine. This has not changed, he argued.

Bryzatyj decided to leave the Federal Protection Service after Russia’s armed invasion Ukraine. It took him almost eight months. His superiors threatened to send him to war. – The last sentence I heard when leaving the service was: good luck on the front, he recalled. However, the man managed to flee the country. Currently lives in Ecuador.

After the armed invasion, Federal Protective Service officers were unable to contact Ukrainian relatives, citizens of the United States and the European Union.

“The dacha in Oliwa is Putin’s residence in Crimea, which we know about,” recalled the Russian section of Radio Svoboda, which reported on this place in 2021. The station noted that the president may also have other properties on the annexed peninsula.