Pro-Kremlin media outlets have circulated an FSB report about the discovery of the assassination of St. Petersburg vice-governor Mikhail Manevich. It was completed in 1997 at the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Rubinshteina Street. According to the FSB, the assassin was ordered by the leader of the Tambov organized crime group Vladimir Barsukov (at the birth of Kumarin).
The secret service claims that one of the perpetrators followed Manevich's place of residence. He also informed his partner, who later fired at the governor's car, about his steps. The FSB allegedly managed to obtain confessions from both. Barsukov himself is already serving a term of 23.5 years for the amount of other crimes. Among them are the creation of the Tambov organized criminal group, the organization of the raider seizure of the St. Petersburg oil terminal, through which fuel supplies for Pulkovo went, the attempt on its co-owner Sergei Vasiliev and others. In 2019, he was also charged with ordering the murder of State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova.
The Tambov organized criminal group is closely connected with Vladimir Putin. From 1997 to 2000, he served on the advisory board of the Russian-German real estate company St. Peterburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG (SPAG). In 2001 , Newsweek wrote that the Tambov organized crime group began to control it and used the company for money laundering. In addition, the already mentioned seizure of the oil terminal also took place with the permission of Putin. It was he who, on May 17, 1996, being the vice-mayor of St. Petersburg, signed an order to transfer the complex to the lease of CJSC Sovex. At that time, it was controlled by associates of the Tambov organized crime group Dmitry Skigin, Ilya Traber and the already mentioned Sergey Vasiliev. For this deal, Putin received 4% of the company's income.