Translated material
Organs transplants, or return of MGB
What awaits law enforcement agencies and special services after March 18? The New Times found out what reform options are discussed in the highest echelons of power
Complex of the FSB buildings on Lubyanka Photo: Flickr / Photos of Moscow Moscow-live.ru
In May, after the inauguration, the head of state will have to determine not only the new composition of the leadership of the Kremlin and the White House, but also a new configuration of power structures. As the three high -ranking interlocutor NT, close to the leadership of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, explain, consultations are now on how exactly the new structure will look.
Ministry of State Security
FSB RF Photo: fsb.ru
Discussions mainly go around the project to create the Ministry of State Security. This idea was actively discussed in the summer and autumn of 2016, but then, two NT sources explain, the solution of the issue was postponed in connection with the approach of the election period. After March 2018, when a vote passes, the initiative can still be implemented.
At the disposal of NT there are excerpts from the concept prepared by supporters of the MGB on Lubyanka. The ministry must unite the Federal Security Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service, and the Basic department will be counterintelligence, the document says. “The concentration in the FSB of foreign intelligence and security functions looks like a logical solution, <...> since in a leading regime it will also allow them to intercept them (SVR) and contribute to neutralization (FSO),” the concept is indicated in the concept. The materials also emphasize that the formation of the MGB will “create and maintain dualism” among the power structures: it is assumed that the Ministry will balance the Russian Guard Viktor Zolotov. Finally, another argument in favor of the MGB is given by a source close to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: if the FSB, SVR and FSO report to the president of the same thing, they are equally engaged in the fight against crime within the country, study public opinion and “reflect external threats”, then it is logical to unite them.
Among the likely heads of the MGB, the NT interlocutors call not only the director of the FSB Alexander Bortnikov, who has been managing the service for almost ten years, but also the director of the FSO Dmitry Kochnev. The latter heads the department relatively recently: in May 2016, he replaced Evgeny Murov in this post. The choice then stood between Kochnev and Oleg Klimentiev, who led the Presidential Protection Service after Viktor Zolotov. According to the interlocutor NT in the FSO, preference was given to Kochnev, since he is able to solve “difficult personnel issues”.
“If the FSB, the SVR and the FSO report the president of the same thing, equally engage in the fight against crime within the country, study public opinion and“ reflect external threats ”, then it is logical to unite them,” the source says
And Kochnev met these expectations, after a year and a half, having resigned more than ten FSO generals; Another subordinate of Kochnev, the head of the FSO security service in the Caucasus, Gennady Lopyrev, was sentenced to ten years in the colony for receiving a bribe. A source in the service explains this by the change of team: the settled officers were close to Murov, many of them “sat down” in their posts, and Lopyrev completely overestimated his hardware weight and the ability to turn directly to the president. If the MGB is formed, then the FSO will not lose its influence, they say two NT interlocutors, and for Kochnev, if he is appointed to the post of head of the ministry, this will be a noticeable increase.
NT interlocutors found it difficult to answer the question what position on the reform is occupied by the director of the SVR Sergey Naryshkin. According to one of the interlocutors, the former speaker of the State Duma has been the current post for less than a year and a half, but during this time he joined the team well, did without serious rearrangements, appointing only his deputy Sergei Gerasimov (before that he worked as the first deputy minister of justice), and probably would prefer to stimulate the current state of affairs.
However, another NT source on Lubyanka calls not to write off Bortnikov’s accounts. In recent years, the President had two significant complaints about the director of the FSB: the first was related to confrontation with the leadership of Chechnya during the investigation of the Boris Nemtsov murder, the second-with the failure of the special services in the fight against terrorists, resulting in the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg in April 2017, coincided with the arrival of Vladimir Putin. However, the source notes, the confrontation with Kadyrov was exhausted, and on the anti -terrorist line of the FSB was rehabilitated: at the end of the year, Bortnikov reported 23 prevented terrorist attacks. If the director leaves his post, then only for the reason that he holds the position longer than his predecessor, Nikolai Patrushev, for almost ten years. In this case, Bortnikov will probably go to work in the Security Council, the source continues.
In recent years, there were two significant complaints from the president’s director: the first was related to confrontation with the leadership of Chechnya during the investigation of the case of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, the second - with the failure of the special services in the fight against terrorists, resulting in the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg in April 2017, coincided with the arrival of Vladimir Putin Putin Putin Putin
Federal Investigation Service
The general contours of the ministry have not yet been defined. According to one of the sources, it is likely that the President’s Security Service will not enter the MGB and will exist as a separate structure. Two more interlocutors argue that the option of the allocation from the MGB of investigative functions is discussed, which will transfer to the new structure - the Federal Investigation Service (FSR). As noted in the concept, “the TFR and all the investigative units of other law enforcement agencies are flooded with it”, that is, the Investigative Department of the FSB and the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, “whose employees will be withdrawn beyond the state and re -certified.” This, as the interlocutor notes in the leadership of the FSB, gives space for personnel maneuver.
The idea of the FSR arose simultaneously with the MGB - in the summer of 2016. And for the same reasons as the MGB, it was put for a while under cloth. Now she has again appeared supporters, for example, the head of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexander Romanov, to whom such a regrouping will add influence. Vladimir Kolokoltsev opposes, since his ministry after such a reform will actually remain the “district department”, says an interlocutor close to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
However, the FSR is not the most attractive option for the FSB. According to two sources in a special service, Lubyanka would prefer not to abandon investigative functions, but to concentrate them in their hands, pushing the TFR to the background. The attack on the powers of investigators in the FSB has been conducting for a long time: partly this offensive, for example, has been a criminal case against senior employees of the Investigative Committee .
The idea of the Federal Investigation Service is supported by the head of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexander Romanov, to whom such a regrouping will add influence. Vladimir Kolokoltsev is opposed, since his ministry will actually remain “the department of the precincts” after such a reform ”
As part of the same offensive in mid -December 2017, Senator Alexei Alexandrov introduced a bill to the State Duma, which offers to give the Prosecutor General and his deputies the right to withdraw any criminal case or materials for the inspection of the crime identified by the FSB and transfer it to the investigation into the service. “The proposed changes will increase the effectiveness and objectivity of the preliminary investigation in a number of criminal cases identified by the FSB authorities, the preliminary investigation on which today is carried out by investigators of other preliminary investigation authorities (for example, investigators of the Investigative Committee of Russia in relation to judges, prosecutors and investigators),” the author of the document notes in an explanatory note, without hiding whose powers will be cut off. Now the bill has been sent to the Committee on State Construction and Legislation. The interlocutor NT in the State Duma leadership says that the law was preparing with the fate of the FSB, because he has good chances to accept.
The fate of Bastrykin
The Federal Investigation Service is not the only option for the reform of law enforcement agencies. NT already wrote that the Investigative Committee may return to the bosom of the General Prosecutor's Office, from which it was allocated in 2011. In addition, the functions of the Investigative Committee can be divided between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB: the police will move to economic crimes, and counterintelligence will be corruption. One of the interlocutors of NT says that the idea of creating a single Investigative Committee on the basis of the TFR and the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not fully buried. The main lobbyist of such a transformation was police general Alexander Savenkov , whom Vladimir Putin fired from the Ministry of the Interior at the end of November 2016. However, even after that, there are enough supporters of this option for reforming the investigation in law enforcement agencies, the source notes.
All three scenarios provide that the current chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, will not remain at his post. A well-known interlocutor NT believes that in case of resignation, Bastrykin will ask for the post of head of the St. Petersburg Academy of the Investigative Committee. The source explains this by the fact that the educational institution will survive, no matter how events develop. In addition, Bastrykin considers the academy his brainchild and wants to take care of him.
All three scenarios provide that the current chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, will not remain at his post. In case of resignation, Bastrykin will ask for the post of head of the St. Petersburg Academy of the Investigative Committee
Bastrykin’s dissatisfaction with the country's leadership has been ripening for a long time. His speeches in the press, a conflict with the deputy chief editor of Novaya Gazeta, Sergei Sokolov , found real estate found in Bastrykin in the Czech Republic, allegedly in touch with the members of the Tambov criminal group, which is mentioned in the materials of the Spanish investigation, are only a few on the surface of the reasons for which the work of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee ceased to arrange the president. Among the less obvious, NT sources call Bastrykin’s protracted conflict with the Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, who resulted in the prosecutors of the underground casinos in the suburbs , the “case of generals of the Investigative Committee” and the confrontation with the FSB. Thus, the special service continues to seek criminal prosecution of the head of the capital's department of the TFR Alexander Drymanov close to Bastrykin in the Shakro Molodoy case.
The Chairman of the Investigative Committee himself, speaking to students of the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University, admitted that talking about the reform of the Investigative Committee is underway. Excitements from the recording of his speech are at the disposal of NT. Then Bastrykin recalled that his department has his own proposal to reform, which consists in reconstructing the position of a judicial investigator. This idea in the TFR has been talked about since the end of 2015, but, as a senior interlocutor NT draws attention in power structures, it is unlikely that in the near future this initiative will be implemented, since there are still more radical changes on the agenda.