A CHECK PULLED AGAIN

INVESTIGATIONS

This spring, apparently, can greatly change the classic style of the hardware leadership. I don’t know if the time has come to talk about the decline of the classical concept of “administrative resource”, but methods of influencing political opponents...

This spring, apparently, can greatly change the classic style of the hardware leadership. I don’t know if the time has come to talk about the decline of the classic concept of “administrative resource”, but the methods of influencing political opponents have already been supplemented by the achievements of specialists in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence. The protracted confrontation between the governor of Nizhny Novgorod Khodyrev and the presidential envoy Kiriyenko resulted in a special operation by the local FSB.

By all indications, this incident should have escalated into a federal scandal. For example, in the United States, events similar in form and content led to the resignation of President Nixon. In our case, the case was limited to vague threats of exposure, voiced by representatives of both conflicting parties. However, you can judge the scale of the event yourself: for the first time, employees of the regional department of the FSB detained representatives of the administration of the current governor of the region on charges of organizing surveillance of "high-ranking people in the region." So in the recent history of Russia there was a precedent for the open use of special services in regional politics.

At the front doors

... In Nizhny Novgorod, as in the capital, the authorities sit in the Kremlin. Of course, the scale of this structure is more modest, but the gates of the Nizhny Novgorod citadel of power are constantly open. And there - a couple of churches, military equipment from the Second World War and the bulky building of the former regional committee.

Its deserted main entrance - the one that looks at the Volga, is intended for the regional administration. Behind it is a marble staircase with worn carpets and the echoing emptiness of a typical state institution. A side entrance with polished bronze plaques and expensive foreign cars at the door leads to the chambers of the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian president. It is more difficult to get here: strict security requires a pass.

The "federals", as elsewhere, are solid and inaccessible, answering all questions with an unflappable "call back later." "Regionals", on the contrary, easily make contact: "Come, let's talk ...". And then, in the best traditions of the workers of the regional committee, they meaningfully shrug their shoulders: “Now is not the time for the whole truth ...”. But Nikolai Sintsov, head of the assistance programs department of the Nizhny Novgorod Federal Security Service, knows exactly when it will be possible to talk about a brilliant operation to neutralize spies on a regional scale: "As soon as operational-search activities are over ...".

Confused by the number of detainees, the parties refrain from political and legal attacks, carefully choosing words - the course of the scandal slows down smoothly: in the seventies, after exchanging once again failed intelligence officers, the great world powers kept quiet.

However, even schoolchildren know the main reason for the conflict in Nizhny Novgorod: the two entrances of the Nizhny Novgorod authorities, to put it mildly, are not friends with each other. According to local journalists, the conflict between Plenipotentiary Kiriyenko and Governor Khodyrev began immediately after the announcement of the results of the 2001 regional elections. True, until now the confrontation for the most part consisted in minor mutual injections of a purely political nature. Now, after the arrest of several (according to officials of the regional administration - one, according to the representative of the FSB - three) officials of the regional administration, the struggle of the former liberal prime minister with the current communist governor has taken on the character of a cold war with all its attendant attributes.

Local espionage

The first spy story on a provincial scale began with a banal theft. They stole, as in the days of the famous "Watergate" scandal, information. Only they did it not with the help of telephone bugs, following the example of distant America of the seventies, but dragged documents intended for official use directly from the computers of the governor's administration.

And someone did it so skillfully that several experts in the field of information security, checking the governor's computer network for traces of hacking, at first came to a standstill. But when the picture nevertheless began to clear up, the computer scientists who were investigating the hack were detained by the local FSB, accusing some “high-ranking people” of illegal surveillance.

During interrogation, these “high-ranking people” were declared detained by a counterintelligence officer: it turns out that they were spying on the head of the FSB for the Nizhny Novgorod region, Vladimir Bulavin, and the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian president in the Volga Federal District, Sergei Kiriyenko.

At the same time, surveillance, according to the investigator, was one of the stages of preparation for the upcoming gubernatorial elections in a year. It turns out that it is the discrediting of representatives of the Center that can help the moderate opposition governor Khodyrev be re-elected.

To be honest, for some reason no one believes in the seriousness of the FSB's intentions. Most likely, in the opinion of my interlocutors from among the employees of the regional administration, the detention was a classic preventive strike that immediately clarified the alignment of forces.

Another thing is alarming: if the leadership of the FSB decided on a tough military operation (and the detention of employees of the regional administration differed little from the classic “mask shows”) a year before the gubernatorial elections, then how will the “feds” act immediately before the vote?

And who did break into the governor's network?

And why was the FSB not interested in this, but only detained officials who were trying to find out where the “hackers” came from?

In any case, I repeat, for the first time the intervention of the special services in the political struggle was officially revealed. Who would have thought!