Sudden and sweeping reforms to Russia’s security ministries don’t signal a return to the Soviet Union, but a new balance of power. (c) Ivan Sekretarev / AP / Press Association Images. All rights reserved.This article originally appeared in Russian on RBC. We are grateful for the opportunity to repost it here.
For 17 years now, the KGB’s offspring has ruled Russia. They’re everywhere — business, politics, public services. They run the economic security departments in the majority of banks and the most important departments in Russia’s “power ministries” (known informally as the siloviki). Outside the capital, young security officers become regional ministers and heads of various agencies. These are the people that, at the start of the Putin era, consciously chose to build a career in the FSB. Often, they’re the sons of Soviet security men.
Today, the FSB is in a non-stop regime — vacuuming up all the information it can, launching various campaigns (whether political or criminal) and controlling them. People in the legal profession often come across polite letters from the heads of regional FSB departments addressed to local prosecutors or police chiefs with requests to keep a particular someone under watch. These requests often end in administrative or criminal cases against that particular individual, or law suits with a guaranteed result.
