Putin’s former university classmate and close aide, Bastrykin is in charge of Russia’s main authority investigating crimes and developing criminal trial policy. In 2012, he made international headlines when the editor-in-chief of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta claimed that Bastrykin had his deputy editor picked up and taken to a remote forest, then allegedly threatened to kill him.

According to the European Union, Bastrykin is “responsible for the [Investigative] Committee’s widespread and systemic repressive against the Russian opposition, targeting and investigating their members.” The U.K. named him responsible for and “intentionally or recklessly” failing to investigate the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in detention in 2009 after being mistreated and denied medical care.