Dmitry Nikolayevich Filippov

Dmitry Filippov (; 1 August 1944 – 13 October 1998) was a Soviet and Russian politician and businessman. An influential member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Lensovet before 1991, Filippov established Saint Petersburg's tax service in the early 1990s and was one of the city's most prominent businessmen during the 1990s, with significant investments in the Russian petrochemical industry. He was killed in a 1998 bombing; Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly member Yury Shutov was found guilty of his assassination by the Saint Petersburg city court in 2006 after a seven-year trial.

Early life Filippov was born in Yurga, in the Siberian Kemerovo Oblast. He graduated from Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute in 1967. After graduation he worked as a foreman, a technologist, and a head of section at the Leningrad Scientific and Production Association known as "Pozitron".

Soviet political career

Komsomol leader 1973–1974 - a secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of Komsomol, then - the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of Komsomol.

1974–1983 - a secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee, a member of the Council of Ministers USSR, chief of staff of construction of Baikal-Amur Railway, chief of staff to develop the West Siberian oil and gas industry.

1975–1983 - the Vice-President of the Soviet-Hungarian friendship society.

from 1978 - also a member of the Presidium of the AUCCTU.

Leningrad Communist Party leader 1983–1985 - the first secretary of the District Committee Smolninsky of the Communist Party in Leningrad. He was appointed to this position by the direct order of Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich.

1985–1986 - the head of the light and food industry's department of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party.

1986–1990 - the secretary - supervisor of the industry of Leningrad and Leningrad region) of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party.

Filippov became a member of the Lensovet in 1984. Writing for the George Washington University, researcher Egor Sennikov describes him as having been a "major Soviet nomenklatura" during the late Soviet period.

In post-Soviet Russia Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Filippov became one of Leningrad (renamed to Saint Petersburg)'s most influential figures. He created the Saint Petersburg Tax Inspectorate and served as its de facto chair from 1990 to 1993, placing him in control of the city's money flows. He resigned in 1993 for unclear reasons, which newspaper Kommersant alleged involved a conflict with city governor Anatoly Sobchak. He left the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg the same year. CPRF politician posthumously described him as a supporter of socialism with Chinese characteristics in 2013, additionally noting that he viewed Keynesian policies of state capitalism as a "lesser evil" compared to the liberal policies of Boris Yeltsin's government.

Filippov maintained vast financial interests across Saint Petersburg and Russia, making him one of the country's most prominent businessmen. He was chairman of the board of directors at Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Bank Menatep in Saint Petersburg, president of Petersburg Fuel Company and chairman of other petroleum and petrochemical corporations. He owned 60% of shares in Tobolsk Petrochemical Plant, a facility in western Siberia. Several politicians were patrons of Filippov during this time, including Shamil Tarpishchev and Oleg Soskovets.

Investigations by the FSB focused primarily on his business interests. Two people were accused of orchestrating Filippov's murder; Yury Shutov, a Member of the Legislative Assembly, was accused of organising a gang and overseeing the murders of Filippov and multiple other Saint Petersburg businessmen and preparing to murder , while Vladimir Yudin, a former director of the Tobolsk Petrochemical Plant (owned by Filippov) was accused of seeking out Muscovite gangsters (who had, in turn, contacted Shutov) in order to kill Filippov as part of a dispute over the management of the plant. Belov later claimed that Filippov had been assassinated by the Russian government for his political views.

Shutov was found guilty of Filippov's assassination on 15 February 2006. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in prison in 2014.