Alexander Cherkasov. Oprichnina service

Oprichnina service
Alexander Cherkasov

Publication date: March 4, 2004

The combination with the arrest of Qataris at Sheremetyevo “for incorrectly executed documents and undeclared dollars” (with the aim of subsequent exchange for Russian agents) did not bring results. At first there was confusion: the detainees - members of the Qatari Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling team who were in transit from Belarus to Serbia - turned out to be our former compatriots. The wrestler, Azerbaijani Ibad Akhmedov, and the coach, Belarusian Alexander Dubrovsky, are citizens of Belarus. For Arab sheikhs, the entire former USSR is like Azerbaijan, like Belarus, like a united Russia, the exchange of Russians for Russians is nonsense. The story of the taking of civilian hostages seems to have quietly faded away. But on March 3, it turned out that Qataris had been detained in Moscow - either two, or one...

It looks like the game didn't go according to the rules from the very beginning. Previously, our diplomats, who could not be arrested, were expelled. In response, we declared their diplomats persona non grata. The arrested “intelligence officers” were exchanged for “spies” sitting in our prisons. But the “civilian population” was not touched. Terror and hostage-taking were prohibited.

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On February 13, 2004, a former worker, a former poet, a former activist of the national movement, a former head of one of the former autonomous republics of the Russian Federation was blown up in his own white jeep. For a national crime news feed, this would be an ordinary message. For Qatar, in whose capital Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed, this is the first terrorist attack in the entire history of the country.

Friday the thirteenth was not a happy day for the Russian special services, because less than a week later three Russian citizens were arrested on suspicion of involvement in organizing a terrorist attack. One of them was subsequently released because he had a diplomatic passport and some kind of immunity. Speaking, it would seem, in defense of those arrested and. O. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov did the agents a disservice with the words “these Russian citizens are employees of the Russian special services.” These two “international terrorism analysts,” assigned to the embassy for three months, had no diplomatic status and, therefore, no diplomatic immunity.

In the late twenties, the police of capitalist countries “covered” Soviet stations. The most famous incidents were in England and China. The Arcos affair led to the severance of diplomatic relations between the USSR and England. Arcos - All Russia Cooperative Society, Ltd., or All-Russian Cooperative Society, which had an office in London. The "Cooperative" served as a "cover" for agents of the GPU and the Comintern. The British security service MI5 was plagued by vague doubts for a long time, and finally, in May 1927, one and a half hundred police officers raided the company's office and warehouses. About 250 thousand documents were seized and studied, after which the British authorities announced the discovery of a spy nest and severed diplomatic relations with the young Soviet republic.

In the case of Arcos, there was more than enough evidence of subversive and espionage activities, nevertheless, domestic diplomats and propagandists were firm: we know nothing, we know nothing, and you planted the evidence yourself...

Soviet intelligence services also learned from these mistakes. Something was hidden in embassies under diplomatic cover, something went underground, into illegal networks. Failures have become rare. And now the arrest of “special service officers” who acted openly, without immunity and without cover. Have you really forgotten how?

In Soviet times, ours would have insisted: “peaceful Soviet tractor”, the detainees - journalists, construction specialists on permafrost, etc. - but would not have shared the “aggravating circumstances” with the adversary. And now? The Minister of Foreign Affairs admits to the whole world that the detainees belong to the special services, an unprecedented case.

It is not clear where such sloppiness in words comes from. Perhaps the actions of the departments - foreign policy and the secret police - were not coordinated, and the safety of prisoners was sacrificed to propaganda rhetoric. Perhaps the charges are so serious that denial is pointless.

However, fortune telling here is unproductive. All versions may be partly true. Another thing is more interesting and important: how did we get to this life?

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The title of this article is by no means a slogan. The title is semantically accurate. “Oprich” means “besides”, “except”, “especially”. So the Cheka, special officers, special forces and special services of all types are synonymous with the institution of Ioann Vasilyevich.

Instead of slowly and painstakingly changing the situation in the country as a whole, we are creating something wonderful nearby and besides. Of course, with special powers. We do not learn to work within the framework of laws and decency, but we act around the rules, of course, secretly. In pitch darkness.

Kim Philby , a veteran of British and Russian intelligence, noted in his memoirs “My Secret War” that the level and quality of work of MI-5, operating in Great Britain itself, was significantly higher than that of MI-6, “working” outside the country. According to a veteran of two intelligence services, the explanation is simple. In England, the “knights of the cloak and dagger” were constrained by the need to comply with the laws of the United Kingdom or to carefully conceal their activities - from the guardians of the law, the press, and society.

This observation undoubtedly belongs to a Briton - even printed in Russian. Because the “working” conditions of the domestic special services in this regard were and remain hothouse: “Where does Benya end and where does the police begin?” - “The police end where Benya begins.”
Yes, there were prerequisites for the professionalization of Soviet agents abroad. A certain tradition, culture, style has developed. They tried not to abandon “our own people.” True, there were differences here too. So, the intelligence officers themselves do not speak very flatteringly about Sudoplatov and his people - saboteurs and terrorists. Greater freedom in the choice of means was less conducive to both corporate culture and corporate solidarity.

In the USSR itself, the working conditions of the secret police were softer. Restrictions in “techniques and methods” were present only insofar as “the main meaning of the existence of any secret service is to be secret” (in the words of the same Philby). Accordingly, there was less professionalism. And there was absolutely no understanding that for truly effective work, compliance with the law is not an annoying obstacle, but an indispensable condition.

In Russia in the nineties, these skills were lost, if only because control over the intelligence services disappeared. The old “system of checks and balances” - at least between the KGB and the Department of Administrative Bodies of the Central Committee - was lost. A new, democratic system of control - parliamentary and public - never emerged. Accordingly, the level of operations performed quickly fell.

The same Basayev was trained, equipped and used in 1992-1993 in Abkhazia, beyond the border of Russia, although very close. What is called “for third world countries”. But the “Chechen opposition” - Avturkhanov, Gantamirov , etc. - in the summer of 1994 armed themselves to solve internal Russian problems. To help this “opposition,” military counterintelligence recruited officers and warrant officers in garrisons near Moscow. That is, the option “for third world countries” was used on its territory. And after the unsuccessful assault on Grozny on November 26, 1994 and the capture of dozens of Russian officers by Dudayev’s supporters, they simply disowned them. Needless to say, the choice of such crude and “strong” means did not lead to the solution of the task; rather, on the contrary, Chechnya rallied around Dudayev.

In Chechnya - the main school of Russian special forces of the last decade - in order to "effectively" solve the assigned tasks, almost all restrictions were lifted. The detainees - militants, "accomplices", simply suspects - were not treated on ceremony. They widely used “forced interrogation” methods from the arsenal of military intelligence and special forces - the kind that don’t last long. The detainees, instead of being placed in a temporary detention facility, then in a pre-trial detention center and strictly registered, following the Criminal Procedure Code, were most often simply destroyed. People "disappeared". It turned out that this is - no, not just criminal, but also ineffective. Because in two hours under torture a person can say everything he knows. And what he doesn't know. And - most often - what the executioner would like to hear. Or maybe not say anything. And then it will be too late to check and correct anything. Various kinds of codes, among other things prohibiting torture and extrajudicial executions, were developed not only for the benefit of the “forced”, but also to guarantee the quality of the “work”. After all, impressive does not mean effective.

Over many years of war in the Caucasus, extrajudicial practices did not produce results, but only led to the endless reproduction of resistance, because the “disappeared,” unlike the killed, are not buried and are invisibly present, calling for revenge and creating a mobilization reserve for the organizers of terror.

Simple methods are not just ineffective on their own. They discourage people from working and lower their professional level.

By the way, it is worth recalling the history of the abolition of the oprichnina . The oprichnina army was unable to defend Moscow during the next raid of the Crimean Tatars. The city burned down, and the explosion of gunpowder warehouses destroyed the Kremlin walls and towers facing the Moscow River. But in 1572, in the “Battle of Molodekh,” the zemstvo army of the young prince Dmitry Khvorostinin completely defeated Devlet-Girey. And the oprichnina disappeared. And those who dared to remember her out loud were beaten with a whip in the square. Which, however, rather speaks not of a cessation, but of a continuation of traditions...