Shield and whale

The house on Lubyanka, where the office of the main Russian special service is located, does not have a single signboard. Only a memorial plate of Yuri Andropov and printed ads that “from October entry with a proximity pass.” For outsiders, it is now an architectural monument. And the initiates no longer fully understand who and in what status works here. In September, Vladimir Putin, by his decree, dismissed a number of high-profile leaders from the FSB. But the decree was not executed: after two months, according to Newsweek, they continue to go to work and perform their duties.

On September 13, the Prosecutor General's Office unofficially but intelligibly announced that the high-profile case of furniture smuggling for the Grand and Tri Kita stores had reached a new level: 19 officials and officers, including those from the FSB, were suspended from cases. Two names even leaked to the press - the head of the Department of Internal Security (OSB) of the FSB, Lieutenant General Alexander Kupryazhkin, and the head of the FSB Support Service, Colonel General Sergei Shishin. And also the fact that they were already fired by the president. Now, several sources, both in the security services and close to the security services, have confirmed to Newsweek that both generals still occupy their offices in the Lubyanka. "Putin's decree was, but apparently there was no internal service order," says the source of Newsweek, "so from a personnel point of view, this can be explained, but in essence - a blatant picture."

There should actually be more retirees in the FSB. Newsweek knows of another name from the list signed by Putin's "secret" decree, and, according to the editors, this boss also continues to work. And in total, the list of retirees includes more than 20 influential Chekists, that is, we are talking about a full-fledged personnel purge of the leadership. And either the president's instructions are ignored, or he himself makes it clear that they should not be followed. Retired FSB General Alexei Kondaurov says that the internal order for his own resignation was once ready just two days after the presidential decree, and the two-month pause looks very strange: “It is not clear what they are waiting for.” This time the vertical of power has limped where unity of command, loyalty and unquestioning execution are the subject of corporate pride.

In principle, it happens that people are fired, and they take a long time to hand over their cases. There is no strict internal regulation on this subject, and everything is based on “oral orders,” says one of the Lubyanka employees. According to him, a year ago they changed the head of one of the departments, and for several months after his resignation, he appeared almost every day, and sometimes even now he comes. But the September resignations are clearly a different case, since high-ranking Chekists were removed by presidential decree in connection with corruption and the Three Whales case, when influential officials from the FSB became involved in a criminal conflict. The old-timers have not remembered such a powerful wave of layoffs since 1993, when, after the storming of the White House, many people in the Lubyanka were retired. “The signal was such that they would now put things in order, but it turned out like with Georgian casinos, which soon after loud demonstration assaults quietly reopened,” says political analyst Olga Kryshtanovskaya.

Other sources believe that the retirees have not yet found a replacement. “The situation is piquant, but understandable,” explains a source close to the special services. “[FSB head Nikolai] Patrushev cannot put his own man in the CSS, but he also cannot allow a stranger to head the CSS.” The question is also why Patrushev himself has not left yet: according to all bureaucratic laws, mass layoffs in the leadership inevitably lead to the resignation of the first person. Actually, Patrushev is called the main target of a powerful hardware attack, which has been launched since the summer by his competitors among the security forces close to Putin: the Three Whales case has become its engine. In this regard, sources are increasingly talking about a tough confrontation between Patrushev and the head of the State Drug Control Service, Viktor Cherkesov, who is strengthening his influence, as well as the head of the Federal Security Service, Viktor Zolotov.

There are rumors in the Lubyanka itself that the decree on the reorganization of the FSB is already ready and is waiting in the wings under a cloth, and its goal is “a complete change of power and command,” says an intelligence officer: “We were waiting for the fourth quarter. Now - before the New Year. But it may not happen. According to one version, after the release of the decree on the dismissal of security officers, Patrushev and his deputy, Lieutenant General Alexander Bortnikov, agreed with Putin on "some postponement." Bortnikov, who was appointed head of the economic department instead of Yury Zaostrovtsev, the person involved in the Three Whales case, also has direct contact with the president, and he is even listed among Patrushev's possible successors. A Newsweek source suggests that the decree was covered up with a special stamp, and the names were not made public thanks to the efforts of presidential aide Igor Sechin. And as a result, it is not even quite clear what to discuss: some semi-anonymous secret figures, either fired or not fired from the secret service by secret order.

But the fact remains: having said "A", the President never said "B". “The purge of the ranks in the FSB did not go from a gray level to a legal one,” commented Andrey Soldatov, editor of the agentura.ru website. It looks like Vladimir Putin is correcting the balance of power in his environment, avoiding sudden movements as much as possible. The last, really abrupt, was the June resignation of Prosecutor General Ustinov. Then they fired his first deputy, Yuri Biryukov, who at one time handled the case of the same furniture smuggling in the interests of the FSB, and Vladimir Lyseyko from the Department for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases, another key player in Ustinov's team. And the case of "Three Whales" was again in full swing: as Newsweek was told in the Prosecutor General's Office, in December the prosecution in this case should be fully formed. According to the procedure, it remains to acquaint the accused with it, and the case can be taken to court. According to Newsweek, at least two officers are under investigation, whose names appear in a secret presidential decree that has not been implemented.

Few, however, doubt that Vladimir Putin is not so much fighting corruption as using the “Three Whales” case, either slowing it down or pushing it for his own purposes. And Putin has only one big goal left: to maintain all political weight and control over the apparatus clans after his resignation in 2008. Newsweek’s informed interlocutors note that with the personnel changes in the prosecutor’s office, the key law enforcement agencies – the FSB, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs – have ceased to function as a single the hardware team, and the prosecutor's office itself was taken out from under the influence of the curator of the security forces, Igor Sechin.

Sechin is weakened, but not fired. With the director of the FSB - the same story. And with associates of the director of the FSB, either fired or not, and so on throughout the power hierarchy. Putin has divided into small clans the once slender cohort of security officials who moved with him to Moscow from St. Petersburg. Now everyone is against everyone. And the declared establishment of order in the special services and the fight against corruption turn the executive vertical, which seemed to be completed to every last official, into a flickering phantom - either it exists or it does not.