Investigator Andrei Zakharov discovered that the holding company, which supplies the equipment needed to filter the traffic of Russian users (and spy on them), employs the son of a high-ranking head of the Federal Security Service – and perhaps has a stake in this supplier.
We are talking about the company X Holding, whose structures provide equipment for TSPU complexes – technical means of countering threats that, by law, must be installed in the networks of all telecom operators. Roskomnadzor controls traffic through the TSPU. At the same time, the operators themselves do not have access to the TSPU, and they cannot influence what is happening inside – that is, for them it is essentially a “black box”. TSPU has a software part (its supply is handled by Rostelecom structures) and hardware which is supplied by Yadro, which is part of X Holding.
The position of Deputy Director of X Holding is occupied by 29-year-old Boris Korolev, the son of First Deputy Director of the FSB Sergei Korolev. Boris Korolev, as Zakharov learned from the leaks, joined the management of X Holding in September 2023, when he was 27 years old. The company’s revenues at that time amounted to more than 163 billion rubles, and in 2024 they exceeded 260 billion rubles.
X Holding was founded by and has been owned by technology entrepreneur (and professional eSports player) Anton Cherbenikov for many years. But on the market, Cherbenikov, says Zakharov, was always considered the nominal owner – and the real beneficiary of the property was billionaire Alisher Usmanov.
In July 2023, Anton Cherbenikov died at the age of forty. Zakharov noted that his death “led to the emergence of conspiracy theories.” But most likely, the journalist believes that Cherbenikov died of an overdose of xenon. The owner of X Holding was fond of xenotherapy – procedures during which the patient breathes a mixture of oxygen and xenon.
After Cherbenikov’s death, the holding company’s shares were distributed to its member companies. In particular, they were received by the company Garda, 20% of which was owned by Boris Korolev. X Holding’s report has been closed (although it is one of the three largest IT companies in Russia), and it is impossible to verify the significance of its stock ownership. Zakharov called Korolev’s number (including Max Messenger), but he did not answer.
Meanwhile, Boris Korolev’s stake in X Holding is “ultimately also an asset to his father,” Zakharov believes, based on the fact that Korolev Sr. registered property worth hundreds of millions of rubles in his son’s name. In 2014, 18-year-old Boris Korolev acquired an apartment in the center of St. Petersburg, and a year later – a cottage in the village of Lesnaya Pukhta near Moscow.
In addition, a 200-meter apartment in Moscow was registered in the name of Korolev’s 26-year-old niece. Journalists estimate the cost of these objects at about 300 million rubles. The Korolev family also owns a fleet of Porsche and Mercedes cars worth approximately 30 million rubles. Zakharov points out that the Korolev family had no legal sources of income at the time of purchasing all these assets.
It is difficult to estimate the Korolev family’s profit from blocking, Zakharov points out, because the state hides this information, but according to open data, at least 80 billion rubles were allocated for the installation of the TSPU.
Cover photo: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg/Getty Images