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Lubyanka
- Headquarters of former Russian KGB
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации) or FSB is the principal security agency of
Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB; its immediate predecessor was the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) which was reorganized into the FSB in 1995. The three major structural successor components of the former KGB that remain administratively independent of the FSB are the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Protective Service (FSO), and the Main Directorate of Special Programs of the President of the Russian Federation (GUSP).
The primary responsibilities are within the country and include counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counterterrorism, surveillance and investigating some other types of serious crimes and federal law violations. It is headquartered in Lubyanka Square, Moscow's center, in the main building of the former KGB. The director of the FSB is appointed by and directly answerable to the president of
Russia. Being part of Russia's executive branch formally, the FSB has significant, if not decisive, power over it.
In 2003, the FSB's responsibilities were expanded by incorporating the Border Guard Service and a major part of the Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information (FAPSI); this would include intelligence activities in countries that were once members of the Soviet Union, work formerly done by the KGB's Fifth Service. The SVR had in 1992 signed an agreement not to spy on those countries; the FSB had made no such commitment.
Huge
amounts of money are spent on spying and counter terrorism activities by
all developed nations. Especially with the nuclear
First
Strike and Second
Strike sword of Damocles an ever present 'Man-Made' threat.
If
there were international cooperation to defeat inflation, and existing
currency level-up to meet nature's playing field. I.e., no artificial
currencies that are not linked to the ability of planet
earth to produce. Linked to a means of balancing trade, without
subsidies, and the elimination of geographical border threats. Also
introducing laws to prevent politicians deceiving their electorate -
with full transparency, including remuneration rates for members of
parliaments, and proper searchable registries of conflicts of interest.
Lastly, with recognition of and representations of religions in every
country - as a right. We might then dispense with the cloak and dagger.
HISTORY
OF THE FSB
In 1995, the FSK was renamed and reorganized into the Federal Security Service (FSB) by the Federal Law "On the Federal Security Service" (the title of the law as amended in June 2003) signed by the president on 3 April 1995. The FSB reforms were rounded out by decree No. 633, signed by Boris Yeltsin on 23 June 1995. The decree made the tasks of the FSB more specific, giving the FSB substantial rights to conduct cryptographic work, and described the powers of the FSB director. The number of deputy directors was increased to eight: two first deputies, five deputies responsible for departments and directorates and one deputy director heading the Moscow City and Moscow regional directorate. Yeltsin appointed Colonel-General Mikhail Ivanovich Barsukov as the new director of the FSB. In 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin, a KGB veteran who would later succeed Yeltsin as federal president, as director of the FSB. Putin was reluctant to take over the directorship, but once appointed conducted a thorough reorganization, which included the dismissal of most of the FSB's top personnel. Putin appointed Nikolai Patrushev as the head of FSB in 1999.
After becoming president,
Vladimir Putin launched a major reorganization of the FSB. First, the FSB was placed under direct control of the President by a decree issued on 17 May 2000. The internal structure of the agency was reformed by a decree signed on 17 June 2000. In the resulting structure, the FSB was to have a director, a first deputy director and nine other deputy directors, including one possible state secretary and the chiefs of six departments: Economic Security Department, Counterintelligence Department, Organizational and Personnel Service, Department of activity provision, Department for Analysis, Forecasting and Strategic Planning, Department for Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight against Terrorism.
In 2003, the agency's responsibilities were considerably widened. The Border Guard Service of Russia, with its staff of 210,000, was integrated to the FSB via a decree signed on 11 March 2003. The merger was completed by 1 July 2003. In addition, The Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information (FAPSI) was abolished, and the FSB was granted a major part of its functions, while other parts went to the Ministry of Defense. Among the reasons for this strengthening of the FSB were the enhanced need for security after increased terror attacks against Russian civilians starting with the Moscow theater hostage crisis; the need to end the permanent infighting between the FSB, FAPSI and the Border Guards due to their overlapping functions; and the need for more efficient response to migration, drug trafficking and illegal arms trading. In addition, the FSB was the sole power base of the new president, so the restructuring strengthened his position (see Political groups under Vladimir Putin's presidency).
On 28 June 2004, in a speech to high-ranking FSB officers, Putin emphasized three major tasks of the agency: neutralizing foreign espionage, safeguarding the economic and financial security of the country, and combating organized crime. In September 2006, the FSB was shaken up by a major reshuffle. Combined with some earlier reassignments – most notably those of FSB Deputy Directors Yury Zaostrovtsev and Vladimir Anisimov in 2004 and 2005 – the changes were widely believed to be linked to the Three Whales Corruption Scandal that had slowly unfolded since 2000. Some analysts considered the changes to be an attempt to undermine FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev's influence, as his team from the Karelian KGB Directorate of the late 1980s to early 1990s suffered most, and he had been on vacations during the events.
By 2008, the agency had one Director, two First Deputy Directors and 5 Deputy Directors. It had the following 9 divisions:
1. Counter-Espionage
2. Service for Defense of Constitutional Order and Fight against Terrorism
3. Border Service
4. Economic Security Service
5. Current Information and International Links
6. Organizational and Personnel Service
7. Monitoring Department
8. Scientific and Technical Service
9. Organizational Security Service
COUNTER TERRORIST OPERATIONS
Beginning with the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002, Russia was faced with increased levels of terrorism. FSB Spetsnaz units Alpha Group and Vympel played a key role in hostage rescue operations during the Moscow theater siege and the Beslan school siege. Their performance was criticised due to the high number of hostage casualties. In 2006, the FSB successfully killed Shamil Basayev, who was behind the Beslan tragedy and several other high-profile terrorist acts. According to the FSB, the operation was planned over six months and made possible due to the FSB's increased activities in foreign countries that were supplying arms to the terrorists. Basayev was tracked via surveillance of this arms trafficking. He and other militants were preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in Ingushetia when FSB agents destroyed their convoy; 12 militants were killed.
During the last years of the Vladimir
Putin's second presidency (2006–2008), terrorist attacks in Russia dwindled, falling from 257 in 2005 to 48 in 2007. Military analyst Vitaly Shlykov praised the effectiveness of Russia's security agencies, saying that the experience learned in Chechnya and Dagestan had been key to the success. In 2008, the
American Carnegie Endowment's Foreign Policy magazine named Russia as "the worst place to be a terrorist" and highlighted especially Russia's willingness to prioritize national security over civil rights. By 2010, Russian forces led by the FSB had managed to eliminate the top level leadership of the Chechen insurgency, except for Dokka Umarov.
INCREASED TERRORISM & EXPANSION OF FSB POWERS
Starting from 2009, the level of terrorism in Russia increased again, particularly suicide attacks. Between February 2005 and August 2008, no civilians were killed in such attacks. In 2008, at least 17 were killed, and in 2009 the number rose to 45.
In March 2010, Islamist militants organised the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, which killed 40 people. One of the two blasts took place at Lubyanka station, near the FSB headquarters. Militant leader Doku
Umarov - dubbed "Russia's Osama Bin Laden" - took responsibility for the attacks.
In July 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev expanded the FSB's powers in its fight against terrorism. FSB officers received the power to issue warnings to citizens on actions that could lead to committing crimes and arrest people for 15 days if they failed to comply with legitimate orders given by the officers. The bill was harshly criticized by
human rights organizations.
ROLE
IN UKRAINE
Since 2014, the FSB devoted substantial resources to preparing for a Russian takeover of Ukraine. Although Russia's SVR and GRU (foreign and military intelligence services) were also involved, FSB had a lead role on "intelligence and influence operations".
The FSB's Fifth Service, also referred to as the "Department for Operational Information" and "Operational Information and International Relations Service" is stated by the
BBC and Radio Free Europe as counterintelligence in former territories of the Soviet Union, work formerly done by the KGB's Fifth Service. Its Ninth Directorate of the Fifth Service targets Ukraine. Putin was persuaded to invade Ukraine by a small group of his closest associates, especially Nikolai Patrushev, Yury Kovalchuk and Alexander Bortnikov. According to some experts, Bortnikov played a key role in Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.
According to a report of the Royal United Services Institute citing interviews officers and analysts of Security Service of Ukraine, the FSB Ukraine team greatly expanded July 2021, and by February 2022 it had "around 200 officers" although most teams consist of only 10–20. Before the 2022 invasion, intelligence agencies in Ukraine,
Germany, the
UK, and the
US reported that the FSB planned to replace elected leaders of Ukraine with Ukrainians now living in Russia.
In 2014, according to a Russian military analyst, the FSB badly misled Putin with claims that Ukrainians would welcome a Russian invasion of Crimea to free them from "fascists". According to Radio Free Europe, in 2022, the FSB again promised easy victory if Russia invaded Ukraine.
With the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian counterintelligence has repeatedly asserted that the FSB suffered failures of operations security, including acts of insubordination and possible sabotage. In March 2022, Russia's encrypted communication system in Ukraine became useless after the Russian military destroyed cellphone towers; unencrypted phone calls from the FSB in Ukraine to superiors in Moscow discussing the death of Vitaly Gerasimov were tapped and released publicly. Ukrainian intelligence reported that FSB members were leaking intelligence to them, including the location of the Chechen commandos sent to assassinate
Volodymyr
Zelensky. In late March, Ukrainian intelligence posted online the names, addresses, phone numbers, and more of 620 people they identified as FSB agents. None of these reports have been confirmed by the FSB.
Media outlets of Ukraine, its allies in the West, and Russian dissidents report that Vladimir Putin has blamed setbacks in the military operations on the FSB and the Fifth Service. On 11 March 2022, investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov reported that Fifth Service head Sergey Beseda and his deputy, Anatoly Bolyukh were under house arrest due to Putin's discontent with intelligence failures regarding the invasion of Ukraine. A U.S. official interviewed by The
Wall Street Journal described the arrest report as "credible".
On 11 April 2022, the Times of London, citing unnamed sources who had spoken to Bellingcat executive director Christo Grozev, reported that Beseda was transferred to Lefortovo Prison, the scene of mass executions during Stalin's purges. The same report claims that up over 100 FSB agents from the Fifth Service had been sacked. The Times of London also reports that "it is thought that" the Fifth Service is now headed by Beseda's former subordinate, Grigory Grishaev.
According to an article in the 11 April 2022 issue of The Washington
Post:
Several current and former officials described the Russian security service as rife with corruption, beset by bureaucratic bloat and ultimately out of touch. A Ukrainian intelligence official said the FSB had spent millions recruiting a network of pro-Russian collaborators who ultimately told Putin and his top advisers, among them the current FSB director, what they wanted to hear.
A series of alleged leaked letters from FSB analysts, made public after the invasion began, report the same kind of problem. For example: "You have to write the analysis in a way that makes Russia the victor ... otherwise you get questioned for not doing good work."
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
In 2011, the FSB said it had exposed 199 foreign spies, including 41 professional spies and 158 agents employed by foreign intelligence services. The number has risen in recent years: in 2006 the FSB reportedly caught about 27 foreign intelligence officers and 89 foreign agents. Comparing the number of exposed spies historically, the then-FSB Director Nikolay Kovalyov said in 1996: "There has never been such a number of spies arrested by us since the time when German agents were sent in during the years of World War II." The 2011 figure is similar to what was reported in 1995–1996, when around 400 foreign intelligence agents were uncovered during the two-year period.
In a high-profile case of foreign espionage, the FSB said in February 2012 that an engineer working at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia's main space center for military launches, had been sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of state treason. A court judged that the engineer had sold information about the testing of new Russian strategic missile systems to the
American
CIA.
A number of scientists have been accused of espionage and illegal technology exports by the FSB since it was established; instances include researcher Igor Sutyagin, physicist Valentin Danilov, physical chemist Oleg Korobeinichev, academician Oskar Kaibyshev, and physicist Yury Ryzhov. Ecologist and journalist Alexander Nikitin, who worked with the Bellona Foundation, was accused of espionage. He published material exposing hazards posed by the Russian Navy's nuclear fleet. He was acquitted in 1999 after spending several years in prison (his case was sent for re-investigation 13 times while he remained in prison). In August 2021, the FSB arrested plasma physics-expert Alexander Kuranov, chief designer of the Hypersonic Systems Research Center (NIPGS in Russian) in St. Petersburg. Kuranov is suspected of passing secret information to a foreigner about hypersonic technology; he oversaw concept design on the Ayaks/Ajax hypersonic aircraft and has run a Russia-US scientific symposium for several years.
Other instances of prosecution are the cases of investigative journalist and ecologist Grigory Pasko, Vladimir Petrenko, who described danger posed by military chemical warfare stockpiles, and Nikolay Shchur, chairman of the Snezhinskiy Ecological Fund.
Other arrested people include Viktor Orekhov, a former KGB officer who assisted Soviet dissidents, Vladimir Kazantsev, who disclosed illegal purchases of eavesdropping devices from foreign firms, and Vil Mirzayanov, who had written that Russia was working on a nerve-gas weapon.
COUNTER TERRORISM
In 2011, the FSB prevented 94 "crimes of a terrorist nature", including eight terrorist attacks. In particular, the agency foiled a planned suicide bombing in Moscow on New Year's Eve. The agency failed to prevent terrorists perpetrating the Domodedovo International Airport bombing. Over the years, FSB and affiliated state security organizations have killed all presidents of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria including Dzhokhar Dudaev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, Aslan Maskhadov, and Abdul-Khalim Saidullaev. During the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school hostage crisis, all hostage-takers were killed on the spot by FSB spetsnaz forces. Only one of the suspects, Nur-Pashi Kulayev, survived and was convicted later by the court. It is reported that more than 100 leaders of terrorist groups have been killed during 119 operations on North Caucasus during 2006. On 28 July 2006, the FSB presented a list of 17 terrorist organizations recognized by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, to Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, which published the list that day. The list had been available previously, but only through individual request. Commenting on the list, Yuri Sapunov, head of counterterrorism at the FSB, named three main criteria necessary for organizations to be listed.
CYBER UNITS
In recent years, the FSB has expanded its mission to include foreign intelligence collection and offensive cyber operations.
Cyber analysts have referred to FSB hackers as Berserk Bear, Energetic Bear, Gamaredon, TeamSpy, Dragonfly, Havex, Crouching Yeti, and Koala.
The FSB reportedly has two primary centers overseeing its information security and cyber operations. The first is the 16th Center, which houses most of the FSB's signals intelligence capabilities. The FSB also includes the 18th Center for Information Security, which oversees domestic operations and security but conducts foreign operations as well. The U.S. government indicted 18th Center FSB officers in 2017 for breaching Yahoo and millions of email accounts. In 2021, Ukrainian intelligence released information and recordings of 18th Center FSB officers based in Crimea as part of the "Gamaredon" hacking group.
Media reporting indicates FSB units are capable of manufacturing their own advanced malware tools and have been documented manipulating exposed malware to mimic other hacking teams and conceal their activities. Reporting indicates the FSB oversees training and research institutes, which directly support the FSB's cyber mission.
One FSB team reportedly focuses on penetrating infrastructure and energy sector targets. Most operations linked to this team appear to be reconnaissance or clandestine surveillance. The targeting of the energy sector has raised concern within the U.S. government. The Department of Homeland Security and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation have documented the unit's reconnaissance and noted the possibility of inserting malware to cause future damage in an attack. The U.S. government also has linked the unit to attempts to penetrate state and local government networks in 2020.
Media reporting has documented close connections between the FSB and criminal and civilian hackers, which the FSB reportedly uses to augment and staff its cyber units. DOJ has indicted multiple Russian hackers for a variety of criminal and state-sponsored cyber activities. Many of these indictments describe the close relationship between criminal hackers and the FSB.
Xi
Jinping and Vladimir Putin - CRINK
axis leaders
KGB
The Committee for State Security (Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), romanized: Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (KGB), was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 13 March 1954 until 3 December 1991. As a direct successor of preceding agencies such as the Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKGB, NKVD and MGB, it was attached to the Council of Ministers. It was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", carrying out internal security, foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence and secret police functions. Similar agencies operated in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from the Russian SFSR, where the KGB was headquartered, with many associated ministries, state committees and state commissions.
The agency was a military service governed by army laws and regulations, in the same fashion as the Soviet Army or the MVD Internal Troops. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two online documentary sources are available. Its main functions were foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, operative-investigative activities, guarding the state border of the USSR, guarding the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, organization and security of government communications as well as combating nationalist, dissident, religious and anti-Soviet activities. On 3 December 1991, the KGB was officially dissolved. It was later succeeded in Russia by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and what would later become the Federal Security Service (FSB). Following the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB, keeping the unreformed name. In addition, Belarus established its successor to the KGB of the Byelorussian SSR in 1991, the Belarusian KGB, keeping the unreformed name.
CIA director William J Burns
- Vladimir Putin's modern counterpart
KGB
HISTORY
The Federal Security Service is one of the successor organizations of the Soviet Committee of State Security (KGB). Following the attempted coup of
1991 - in which some KGB units as well as the KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov played a major
part - the KGB was dismantled and ceased to exist from November 1991. In December 1991, two government agencies answerable to the Russian president were created by President Yeltsin's decrees on the basis of the relevant main directorates of the defunct KGB: Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia) (SVR, the former First Main Directorate) and the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAPSI, merging the functions of the former 8th Main Directorate and 16th Main Directorate of the KGB). In January 1992, another new institution, the Ministry of Security, took over domestic and border security responsibilities. Following the 1993 constitutional crisis, the Ministry of Security was reorganized on 21 December 1993 into the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FSK). The FSK was headed by Sergei Stepashin. Before the start of the First Chechen War's main military activities, the FSK was responsible for the covert operations against the separatists led by Dzhokhar Dudayev.
ABOUT
THE KGB
The KGB was a military service governed by army laws and regulations, in the same fashion as the Soviet Army or the MVD Internal Troops. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two online documentary sources are available. Its main functions were foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, operative-investigative activities, guarding the state border of the USSR, guarding the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, organization and security of government communications as well as combating nationalist, dissident, religious and anti-Soviet activities. On 3 December 1991, the KGB was officially dissolved. It was later succeeded in Russia by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and what would later become the Federal Security Service (FSB). After becoming president, Vladimir Putin launched a major reorganization of the FSB. First, the FSB was placed under direct control of the President by a decree issued on 17 May 2000.
History repeats itself. That is how Adolf
Hitler made himself the supreme dictator of Nazi Germany. The same
may be said of the British King Henry VIII, where his word became law
via a similar legal tactic, spawning the saying: "Off with his
head." Apparently at the rate of 4.5 beheadings a day average
during his reign. The KGB and FSB had to work hard to keep up with
Henry's butchery. Hitler easily exceeded the English king's lust for
blood.
DURING THE COLD WAR
The KGB failed to rebuild most of its US illegal resident networks. The aftermath of the Second Red Scare (1947–57) and the crisis in the CPUSA hampered recruitment. The last major illegal resident, Rudolf Abel (Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher/"Willie" Vilyam Fishers), was betrayed by his assistant, Reino Häyhänen, in 1957.
Recruitment then emphasised mercenary agents, an approach especially successful in scientific and technical espionage, since private industry practised lax internal security, unlike the US Government. One notable KGB success occurred in 1967, with the walk-in recruitment of US Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker. Over eighteen years, Walker enabled Soviet Intelligence to decipher some one million US Navy messages, and track the US Navy.
In the late Cold War, the KGB was successful with intelligence coups in the cases of the mercenary walk-in recruits FBI counterspy Robert Hanssen (1979–2001) and CIA Soviet Division officer Aldrich Ames (1985–1994).
The Strategic Rocket Forces of the Russian Federation or the Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation (RVSN RF; Russian: Ракетные войска стратегического назначения Российской Федерации (РВСН РФ), romanized: Raketnye voyska strategicheskogo naznacheniya Rossiyskoy Federatsii, lit. 'Strategic Purpose Rocketry Troops of the Russian Federation') is a separate-troops branch of the Russian Armed Forces that controls Russia's land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). It was formerly part of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1959 to 1991.
The Strategic Rocket Forces was created on 17 December 1959 as part of the Soviet Armed Forces as the main force for operating all Soviet nuclear ground-based intercontinental, intermediate-range ballistic missile, and medium-range ballistic missile with ranges over 1,000 kilometers. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, assets of the Strategic Rocket Forces were in the territories of several new states in addition to Russia, with armed nuclear missile silos in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The three of them transferred their missiles to Russia for dismantling and they all joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Complementary strategic forces within Russia include the Russian Aerospace Forces' Long Range Aviation and the Russian Navy's ballistic missile submarines. Together the three bodies form Russia's nuclear triad.
The main RVSN command post is at Kuntsevo in the suburbs of Moscow. The alternate command post is at Kosvinsky Mountain in the Urals.
The Russian Space Forces (Russian: Космические войска России, romanized: Kosmicheskie voyska Rossii, KV) are the space force branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Having been reestablished following August 1, 2015 merger between the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces after the independent arm of service was dissolved in 2011.
On August 1, 2015, the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces were merged to form the Russian Aerospace Forces. The Russian Space Forces were reestablished as a result, and are now one of three sub-branches of the new military branch.
IN THE SOVIET BLOC
It was Cold War policy for the KGB of the Soviet Union and the secret services of the satellite states to extensively monitor public and private opinion, internal subversion and possible revolutionary plots in the Soviet Bloc. In supporting those Communist governments, the KGB was instrumental in crushing the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Prague Spring of "Socialism with a Human Face" in Czechoslovakia, 1968.
During the Hungarian revolt, KGB chairman Ivan Serov personally supervised the post-invasion "normalization" of the country. Consequently, the KGB monitored the satellite state populations for occurrences of "harmful attitudes" and "hostile acts"; yet, stopping the Prague Spring, deposing a nationalist Communist government, was its greatest achievement.
The KGB prepared the Red Army's route by infiltrating Czechoslovakia with many illegal residents disguised as Western tourists. They were to gain the trust of and spy upon the most outspoken proponents of Alexander Dubček's new government. They were to plant subversive evidence, justifying the USSR's invasion, that right-wing
groups - aided by Western intelligence agencies - were going to depose the Communist government of Czechoslovakia. Finally, the KGB prepared hardline, pro-USSR members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), such as Alois Indra and Vasiľ Škultéty, to assume power after the Red Army's invasion.
The KGB's Czech success in the 1960s was matched with the failed suppression of the Solidarity labour movement in 1980s Poland. The KGB had forecast political instability consequent to the election of Archbishop of Kraków Karol Wojtyla as the first Polish Pope, John Paul II, whom they had categorised as "subversive" because of his anti-Communist sermons against the one-party régime of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). Despite its accurate forecast of crisis, the PZPR hindered the KGB's destroying the nascent Solidarity-backed political movement, fearing explosive civil violence if they imposed the KGB-recommended martial law. Aided by their Polish counterpart, the Security Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa—SB), the KGB successfully infiltrated spies to Solidarity and the Catholic Church, and in Operation X co-ordinated the declaration of martial law with Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski and the Polish Communist Party; however, the vacillating, conciliatory Polish approach blunted KGB effectiveness—and Solidarity then fatally weakened the Communist Polish government in 1989.
Nadezhin saw that China threatened the USSR by claiming a historic right to regions under the USSR's control. China also wanted to displace the USSR as the leader of the international socialist movement. The KGB wanted to infiltrate the Chinese security services with "a sufficient number of agents". Top agents also believed that the KGB needed to do more to ensure the protection of the USSR from Chinese spies.
Putin
with Narendra
Modi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India claimed a third term in office on the 4th of June 2024. But his party won by a far narrower margin than expected, and the aura of invincibility around Modi has been shattered.
His Bharatiya Janata Party still won the most parliamentary seats, but it lost dozens of them and was left without enough for an outright majority. So the B.J.P. will need smaller parties in its coalition to form a government, a surprising setback.
The Indian National Congress, the main opposition, did better than expected. The party had been seen by many as irrevocably weakened after big losses in the previous two elections. The Congress and its allies increased their margin against Modi by tapping into issues like unemployment, social justice and the prime minister’s ties to India’s billionaires.
Modi will be only the second Indian leader to start a third straight term, after Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister. Modi called the third term “a historical feat in
India’s history.” As the election results became clearer, India’s stock markets plunged. By the end of trading yesterday, the markets were down 6 percent, nearly wiping out the year’s gains.
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Russian: Народный комиссариат внутренних дел, romanized: Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh), abbreviated as NKVD, was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. It was established in July 1934 to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) secret police agency, and thus had a monopoly on intelligence and state security. The NKVD is known for political repression and for carrying out the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin, as well organizing counterintelligence, barrier, and sabotage operations during
World War
II. The head of the NKVD was Genrikh Yagoda from 1934 to 1936, Nikolai Yezhov from 1936 to 1938, Lavrentiy Beria from 1938 to 1946, and Sergei Kruglov in 1946.
First established in 1917 as the NKVD of the Russian SFSR, the ministry was tasked with regular police work and overseeing the country's prisons and labor camps. It was disbanded in 1930, and its functions dispersed among other agencies before being reinstated as a commissariat of the Soviet Union in 1934. During the Great Purge in 1936–38, on Stalin's orders the NKVD conducted mass arrests, imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial executions of hundreds of thousands of citizens. Millions were sent to the Gulag system of forced labor camps. During
World War
II, the NKVD carried out mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of Poles, Balts, and Romanians, and millions of ethnic minorities in the Caucasus, to remote areas or Gulag camps. NKVD field units served alongside the Red Army in major defensive battles such as at Moscow and Stalingrad, with hundreds of thousands serving in 53 Internal Troops infantry divisions. In addition, the agency was responsible for foreign assassinations, such as that of Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940, and after the war led the suppression of nationalist guerrilla insurgencies in Ukraine and the Baltics.
Within 1941 and from 1943 to 1946, secret police functions were split into the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). In March 1946, the People's Commissariats were renamed to Ministries; the NKVD became the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and the NKGB became the Ministry of State Security (MGB).
The
Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia, USA - where the CIA works against the FSB
WORLD
WAR THREE
In
the event of an international nuclear holocaust, World
War Three will wipe out the Kremlin, and most of Moscow.
CHAPTERS
| CHARACTERS
| MEDIA
|
MOVIE REF |
SCREENPLAYS
|
