The hook is closed

Newsweek wrote at the end of last year that the FSB generals, fired by Putin's decree in connection with the Three Whales furniture smuggling case, did not leave the Lubyanka, but remained to work. Then, according to Newsweek, most of them were nevertheless fired, and the Prosecutor General's Office began to prepare for the trial. Today it is already clear that this was only the first stage of the fight between the FSB and Drug Control (FSKN). On October 2, the FSB arrested four FSKN officers. And that week, the Kommersant newspaper published an article by Viktor Cherkesov, a longtime associate of Putin and head of the Federal Drug Control Service. He directly writes: the FSB is at war with him.

Cherkesov cuts from the shoulder, as if there is no unspoken rule that you can not take dirty linen out of the hut. Such revelations from such high officials have not been heard in all eight years of Putin's rule. The country, writes Cherkesov, was falling into the abyss, but caught on the hook of the "Chekist corporation." Now the hook has begun to rust, which threatens Russia with a new catastrophe. "Corporation" turned out to be unclean, but now the abscess has been opened, the head of the Federal Drug Control Service states.

The high-profile "furniture business" was pulled out from under the cloth last summer. The Federal Drug Control Service was instructed to conduct operational support in the case, and soon Cherkesov put a memorandum with accusatory data on top FSB officers on Putin's desk. The note made an impression, says a source close to the Kremlin, and Putin, to be sure, demanded operational materials. Cherkesov brought everything that was. Then Putin, right in front of him, called his assistant for personnel Viktor Ivanov and instructed to prepare a decree on the dismissal of the generals. At the door of the presidential office, Cherkesov ran into Putin's deputy chief of staff, Igor Sechin, who is considered the unofficial leader of the security forces in the Kremlin. So Sechin and Ivanov learned how compromising evidence on high-ranking security officers got to Putin, the source continues. In other words, Putin pushed the opponents right in his office.

But even if they did not know, it would not be difficult to guess: among the Chekist brothers, the leadership of the FSB probably does not have a more consistent opponent than Cherkesov. The struggle between the head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, and Cherkesov has been going on for many years, since there was no drug control. Towards the end of Putin's second term, the conflict turned into a stage of open confrontation.

The “Three Whales” case has been running through offices and prison cells all these years, involving more and more security officials in the criminal conflict. Chroniclers will remember that in 2000 the war was between the customs and the Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which opened a consignment of contraband furniture, on the one hand, and the FSB and the Prosecutor General's Office, which accused them of racketeering, on the other.

Now a new - and most scandalous - episode is in the works: Viktor Cherkesov is defending his subordinates from Alexander Bastrykin, the new head of the newly created Investigative Committee (IC) under the Prosecutor General's Office, which is investigating arrested drug control officers. Upon returning from a business trip, FSKN General Alexander Bulbov and his assistants were arrested at Domodedovo Airport by a special squad of the FSB. There was almost no shootout. This scene, probably, vividly reminded the eyewitnesses of the episode from the series about Stirlitz, when SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolf returns from Bern to Berlin. With the difference that Bulbov and two of his colleagues were taken not by their own, but by strangers.

On Tuesday evening, Federal Drug Control Service officers Bulbov, Geval and Donchenko were charged under several articles: taking bribes, abuse of authority, illegal wiretapping. All three are in jail and refuse to plead guilty. Bulbov himself and the FES call the accusation exaggerated: one asks, why should the general pay money for organizing wiretapping to the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (as it appears in the accusation), if he has 600 employees with just such a profile under his command? Bulbov was vouched for by three deputy heads of the Federal Drug Control Service - Alexander Fedorov, Vladimir Zubrin and Oleg Kharichkin. But the court did not release Bulbov on bail.

The Federal Drug Control Service claims, firstly, that they are being avenged, and secondly, that the Investigative Committee is thus trying to ruin the Three Whales case, along with another sensational case - about Chinese smuggling: it was also accompanied by the Federal Drug Control Service, and employees also appear in it. FSB. "Drug controllers" hint that Bastrykin is under the influence of Sechin and the deputy head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov. The Investigative Committee should be independent, writes Cherkesov in the article. And he immediately adds, no longer embarrassed: “The October events [arrests in the Federal Drug Control Service] revealed the exact opposite ... with excessive ruthlessness.” Cherkesov except that he avoids naming names. But everything is very clear and without names.

Last summer, Sechin suffered a major defeat: Putin removed his brother-in-law Ustinov from the prosecutor's office, and the prosecutor's office got out of Sechin's influence. According to some reports, even then the FSKN was involved, it allegedly bugged Ustinov. The new Prosecutor General Chaika immediately set in motion the Three Whales case, which Ustinov successfully suppressed. This time it was Patrushev who came under attack. But Sechin quickly restored the status quo: Patrushev sat in his chair, an Investigative Committee independent of Chaika was formed in the prosecutor's office with operational powers, and the prosecutor's office itself lost the right to conduct investigations and arrests. As the elections approach, the "Sechin" group is strengthening on all fronts, observers say.

Arrests of close associates are always a very painful blow. Cherkesov, according to a Newsweek source privy to the details, had already briefly discussed the issue with Putin, but received no clear support for Bulbov. And then he wrote an article to reveal the conflict. The signal reached the arrested that they were taken for politics, and now they are sticking to this line. Cherkesov goes for broke, says the source of Newsweek, because in this situation he has nothing to hide, and he will defend his own to the end. But Cherkesov's associates had questions for Putin, because he personally instructed them to help St. Petersburg investigator Vladimir Loskutov with the Three Whales case. And it was also impossible to give him a move last summer without his knowledge. So why is he handing them over to Bastrykin now?

The war between the FSKN and the FSB did not accidentally come out right now, observers are sure: elections are coming soon, and Putin will leave or stay, a window of opportunity has opened up for key figures in his entourage. Surely there will be changes. Both Cherkesov and Bortnikov, according to several Newsweek sources at once, would like to take the place of Patrushev, who is asking Putin to transfer him to a quieter job. Bortnikov is supported by Patrushev and Sechin. Among the security forces, rumors are increasingly circulating that the reform of the investigation will be completed and that instead of the Investigative Committee at the beginning of next year, the Federal Investigation Service will be created, which will include the investigative structures of all law enforcement agencies. In addition, Putin keeps vacant - obviously with an eye to the near future - the post of Secretary of the Security Council.

The Federal Drug Control Service is more of a personnel reserve than an advanced force detachment. Cherkesov is very ambitious, obviously waiting for a promotion, and therefore wants to remind Putin of himself with the help of a high-profile article in the newspaper, Andrey Soldatov, head of the agentura.ru website, believes. Conversely, Cherkesov's opponents seized the moment and struck a preemptive blow against his ambitions by arresting his associates.

Putin is faced with a choice, explains a source close to the Kremlin, but Putin is not Yeltsin and will put the brakes on the war of special services, and the scandal will subside over time: the second “box from a photocopier”, as in 1996, when a whole clan flew out of the political game Alexander Korzhakov, this time it will not work.

Putin sets himself the opposite task - to maintain a high degree of internecine struggle in the special services. The temperature is rising: intelligence generals are already behind bars, and their boss is writing candid open letters.