"Shamalov... was hired by Putin in 1993. The conflict of interest was massive. Kolesnikov... described... [Dmitri] Gorelov... director of Petromed, ordering medical equipment; Shamalov... representative of , delivering the equipment... a good friend of Putin, with whom he went on to found... .... Kolesnikov said, "When Shamalov came to us with a proposal... we understood... this was... directly from Vladimir Vladimirovich." Gorelov believed that... Putin’s KVS... provided the "roof" to protect against... organized crime. When Vladimir Yakovlev became governor of St. Petersburg... the relationship... [with] Petromed... soured, and Gorelov and Kolesnikov bought... the city's stake... They became major shareholders in Bank Rossiya, purchased a stake in s, and by the mid-2000s were... in the ' Russia... richest Russians. Kolesnikov... ultimately became a whistleblower... [claiming] diversion of funds... to build ".""