There are several explanations for why Putin decided to throw Beseda under the bus now. Some say it’s due to the bad intelligence before the war. But inside the FSB most sources seem to think it was his failure to create and fund a pro-Kremlin opposition to Kyiv’s regime. In any case, that is being used in the official line of investigation, according to sources.

But those theories cannot explain why Putin decided to send Beseda to Lefortovo. Putin had plenty of other options. He could have fired Beseda, as he did with Roman Gavrilov, the deputy commander of the National Guard. Putin could have also transferred him to another agency, as he did with the powerful General Oleg Syromolotov some years ago, when he made him deputy minister of foreign affairs. Instead, Putin placed Beseda under a false name in Lefortovo prison – the only prison in the country under control of the FSB, a place with a gruesome reputation from the 1930s and 1940s. The prison still has an underground shooting range pitted with bullet holes made during Stalin’s purges when this cell was used for mass executions.

The most likely explanation is that Beseda’s Fifth Service was also still in charge of maintaining official contacts with the CIA. Many people in Moscow and the Kremlin have been asking themselves why U.S. intelligence before the war was so accurate. This might have added more to the already existing climate of paranoia. And when Putin gets paranoid, he starts looking for traitors in the places and institutions which are known to have official contacts with American intelligence.