In uniform

The results of the year. FSB. PR war

January 6, 2015 Andrey Soldatov, Irina Borogan

2014 went to the FSB under the sign of foreign policy activities. First, at the Olympic Games in Sochi, the security of which was personally responsible for the FSB deputy director Oleg Syromolotov, something that everyone was afraid of - terrorist attacks, and the international prestige of the FSB sharply grew sharply. They even wanted to use the experience of building a security system in Sochi in a world -class sports events, including, apparently, a system of total surveillance at the Olympiad.

True, a month and a half after the closing of the Olympics, April 5, all this flew into the pipe: Ukrainian special services published data on the stay of the FSB officers in Kiev, who flew to Ukraine just on the eve of Yanukovych.

At the same time, the operation in the Crimea began and ended, during which it was not heard about the FSB, but another Russian special service was fully manifested - the main intelligence department of the General Staff.

And this only attracted attention to the FSB, since this special service was responsible for monitoring the situation in Ukraine. Many began to wonder why the special service so self -confident in Ukraine (and only self -confidence can be explained to Kyiv during the Maidan events of a group of high -ranking officers under their surnames) actually did not understand anything in what was happening and could not predict anything, even the disappearance from the capital of the guarded and controlled president.

In addition, judging by how random people became the leaders of the pro -Russian party in Crimea, the FSB had no serious intelligence positions even on the peninsula, otherwise the selection of politicians would be a little more meaningful.

The war, which began in the east of Ukraine, from the very beginning, characteristic of the overabundance of PR managers and propagandists in key positions, for the Russian special services became the PR war. For months, the media of two countries discussed which of the two special services - the GRU or the FSB - the most replicated “hero” of the Girkin militias (shooters) works, and this discussion lasted so long that it degenerated in the farce at the end of December, when on the eve of the Chekist's Day, an interview of the unnamed general (!) Of the FSB, which claims that it was he and that he and the FSB appeared that he and that and he and it was herself and He dug Girkin back in 1995.

Even the espionage scandal, which happened in 2014, turned out to be unique due to the fact that it was played according to the rules of propaganda, which in this case contradicted the traditions of the special services. It all started quite usually - in early September, on the border of Russia and Estonia, he was captured with weapons and in the form of an officer of the Estonian special services of the KAPO Eston Kokhver, whom the FSB accused of trying to recruit her own officer. However, the captured agent turned out to be such a sonorous name Eston that many journalists suspected that the whole story was staged, and the spy is not real.

It turned out that Eston Kokhver was not only the real name of the officer, but three years ago, in 2011, the head of the Pskov department of the FSB Georgy Drachev at a briefing told about Estonian intelligence officers, and called the name of Kokhver as one of the five main Estonian curators of agents working in the Pskov region. How and why, after such a “light”, Kokhver continued to perform the work of the intelligence officer in Russia, remains a mystery. Nevertheless, Kokhver was transported to Lefortovo, and then the situation developed according to the scenario, which suggested an imminent exchange.

And suddenly, on December 15, the film “Our Man in Tallinn” is released on the NTV channel in the program “Sincere Recognition”, where the former Estonian special services employee admits that he worked for the Russian intelligence services for twenty years. It is curious that he worked not on the SVR or GRU, but on the FSB.

In fact, for the first time, the FSB admitted to the jurisdiction of foreign intelligence, providing all this, of course, with references that the agent told them only about operations against Russia, but judging by the fan of the documents of various special services in the world, with the pride of the field of activity, the field of activity was wider.

In violation of all the unwritten rules in the NTV film, even the agent curator was shown, which is an absolutely incredible business for Russian special services, which are still firmly adhered to the rules not to comment on any reconnaissance operations outside the country that happened after 1961 (the rule has been invented in 1991, but since then they went, but the temporary border has remained there).

The far -reaching ambitions of the FSB to play openly opened on December 25, when it became known that, according to the new agreement between South Ossetia and Russia, the State Security Committee of South Ossetia may directly become part of the FSB.

However, perhaps the best of all about the growing influence of this particular wing of the special services says the post of Navalny on August 5. This is a report on the "Daching" in the village of Akulinino, where also a photo of a plot of 4.3 hectares with two houses, a conversation on Alexei, the son of Sergei conversation, the head of the operational information and international relations of the FSB, one of those who visited Kyiv on February 20-21, was published. When the “Vedomosti” turned to the FSB for comment, they only replied that Alexey is an adult conversation, “it is not in the civil service, and the provision of information about its income and property is not provided for by legislation,” and “Sergei conversation never had a plot in Akulinino”.


Photo by TASS/ Dmitry Rogulin