But I do not believe there’s an FSB coup brewing, at least not yet. Russians know their own history and they understand that regime change only happens when the secret police, the military and the politicians all act together – as they did in 1991 when president Mikhail Gorbachev was overthrown.
But Putin has been picking off key figures in all three of these poles of power. First to hear the knock on the door was Colonel General Sergey Beseda, head of the foreign intelligence branch of the FSB, who was arrested two weeks ago, along with his deputy Anatoly Bolyukh, on suspicion of embezzling money from the slush fund meant for bribing foreign officials…
Next for the chop was Roman Gavrilov, the deputy head of the National Guard, who stands accused of leaking classified information to the West and ‘squandering fuel’.
The truth is Putin is furious because many young soldiers in the National Guard, a paramilitary force whose peacetime role was to quell protests in Russian cities, are protesting themselves. In Ukraine, they feel they are being treated as cannon fodder.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member