Zolotov is a former bodyguard to former President Boris Yeltsin, former St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, and current Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

[6] In 1991, Zolotov was seen as a bodyguard next to President of the Russian SFSR Boris Yeltsin during Yeltin's "Tank Speech" during the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt.

[7] The firm provided protection to high ranking Saint Petersburg officials, including the city mayor Sobchak and his family, as well as vice-mayor Putin.

It also served as the central mechanism for the collection of tribute and chorniy nal or "black cash" (Russian: "черный нал") for Putin's purposes.

[8][9] A high-ranking SVR defector Sergei Tretyakov asserted that Zolotov and Putin-appointed director of the Federal Protection Service (FSO) General Murov had openly discussed how to kill the former chief of Yeltsin's administration Alexander Voloshin.

This made SVR officers who knew about the story "uneasy", since FSO includes twenty thousand troops and controls the "black box" that can be used in the event of global nuclear war.

[15] In April 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on him and 23 other Russian nationals for their involvement in Ukrainian affairs.

[16][17] On 2 March 2021, the Council of the European Union imposed a set of restrictive measures against Zolotov saying he was "responsible for serious human rights violations in Russia, including arbitrary arrests and detentions and systematic and widespread violations of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, in particular by violently repressing protests and demonstrations."