Russian special services are remnants of former greatness

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Russia has recently been seized with heightened interest in spies, although in order to resurrect the former aura of Anna Chapman, a secret service agent for filming, is not enough in Maxim magazine. President of Russia D.A. Medvedev made a statement that the SVR still retains all the possibilities for high-quality, efficient and, most importantly, effective problem solving, however, these statements were made against a background of a number of failures, and the myth of the greatness of Russian special services has already cracked. And really, how to believe in their former greatness, if news On the exposure of our agents appear in the media regularly, while on the disclosure of agent networks, or at least a single agent does not say a word. Meanwhile, Russia is not Burkina Faso and foreign agents have something to be interested in.

The loud arrest of 10 Russian illegal agents in the United States in July last year was attributed to the authorities to “traitors” inside the SVR, calling among others a certain Alexander Poteev. Prime Minister of Russia V.V. Putin called such people "cattle" and "pigs", adding that the person who chose this path will regret his decision a thousand times in the future. In spite of this, the threat may well hang in the air, drowning in the stream of hymns that accompany the return in Russia of ten unlawful illegal agents expelled from the States. After being elevated to the rank of heroes, unlucky intelligence officers begin their second career in Moscow, which is in no way connected with their previous merits. As one of the SVR leaders said, these are “very valuable agents, that’s why they received awards from the hands of the president,” while many Russians consider them just clowns. Former FSB lieutenant colonel Anatoly Yermolin expressed the opinion that by his actions the authorities made it clear that she was not abandoning her.

After 20 years after the collapse of the USSR, our security services failed to regain their former power. Moreover, they are now involved in the struggle for influence and in the corruption schemes that are eating away at our country. Chairman of the Duma Security Committee Gennady Gudkov (former KGB colonel for reference), giving an interview to the French newspaper Le Figaro, noted that the events with the failure of residency in the United States and reports of traitors is an alarming sign for the state. Corruption and greed are increasingly covering our special services, they are marked by a decline in morals. Gennady Gudkov was one of the few who directly speaks about the shortcomings of the domestic special services. In particular, he criticizes the system of personnel selection itself, which has not changed since the 80s of the last century. Preferences in the selection given to the lack of their own opinions, loyalty, as well as personal loyalty, and this in modern conditions is not enough.

Agents who have returned from the States have already been accused of “amateurishness”, and now they are suspected of mercantilism. So according to various sources, which became famous, Anna Chapman, led her own company, which was opened at the expense of her father, a former KGB general, who was well known to American intelligence. Anna Chapman initially was not the most successful "pedigree" to play spies.

Russian special services are remnants of former greatness
Russian spies in US court


According to the reporter Sergey Kanev, who writes on criminal topics, Russian illegal agents are now content to conduct transactions for the benefit of their management. In fact, they are entrusted with the task of laundering money from officials, the security services themselves and the bandits, in most cases through the commission of real estate transactions. According to Kanev, Alexander Poteev, who was accused of surrendering the illegal intelligence network to the American network, simply enjoyed the protection of the SVR for the time being. He transferred part of the money to his superiors in Moscow so that they would turn a blind eye to the business of his wife and daughter in real estate. Problems began after he began to pay less to his patrons. Currently, many FSB agents use their official position to protect a large business. So in early December, two representatives of counterintelligence received 2 for the year in prison for taking a bribe in the amount of a luxury car from one woman from business circles, in exchange for a promise to assist in solving her problems with justice.

When leaving the Russian special services, officers often end up in enterprises under state control. The former security officers surround themselves with oligarchs, who thus try to guarantee their personal security and business security. The main shelters for the former employees of the special services are such companies as Transneft, Rosneft, VTB Bank, the Alpha group of companies, as well as all sorts of sports federations and clubs.

Andrei Soldatov, author of the book New Nobility and editor of the website Agentura.ru, believes that those intelligence officers who could not start their own business or find jobs for oligarchs have difficulty adapting to modern conditions. They can only live in a closed system with pre-known rules of the game, which is based on submission. In the camp of the special services, there is in fact an undercover struggle for posts in the state apparatus between the SVR and the FSB, which previously belonged to the same KGB organization. Many FSB officers never put up with the dissolution of this once powerful organization, where they felt they were full-fledged masters.

After the collapse of the USSR, and first of all, since V.V. Putin, who brought many people from the Russian special services to power, the mission of these special services itself was somehow redeveloped, primarily in the minds of individual employees. You shouldn’t speak for everyone, they work there and are honest, decent people, professionals in their work. But here some elements began to perceive this work - as a kind of social elevator, which after a certain period of time allows you to get the chair of the assistant minister, the head of the small department or a warm place in the state corporation. That is why it is not heard about the special successes of our intelligence officers, because the body is very complex, not allowing failures. And how can he not fail if a person sits in some area in this complex chain of relationships whose thoughts are not occupied by foreign residency, but by how quickly they can get away from here to “raise” to power or to business. We have to admit that the fiasco of our agents in the United States did cause some progress. So the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov, appointed a new head of the personnel service, so perhaps the situation in the department, albeit slowly, will begin to improve.
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