Vladimir Putin brings back the KGB in ‘totalitarian’ move, ignores Tony Abbott calls for sanctions over MH17 attack
According to the Russian daily Kommersant, a major new reshuffle of Russia’s security agencies is under way that will unite the FSB (the main successor agency to the KGB) with Russia’s foreign intelligence service into a new super-agency called the Ministry of State Security — a report that, significantly, wasn’t denied by the Kremlin or the FSB itself.
The new agency, which revives the name of Stalin’s secret police between 1943 and 1953, will be as large and powerful as the old Soviet KGB, employing as many as 250,000 people.
The creation of the new Ministry of State Security represents a “victory for the party of the Chekists,” said Moscow security analyst Tatyana Stanovaya, referring to the first Bolshevik secret police.
“On the night of September 18 to 19 … the country went from authoritarian to totalitarian,” wrote former liberal Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov on his Facebook page.
Further evidence of Putin’s gathering of power into his own hands is an ongoing purge launched over the summer that has already claimed the heads of the Federal Narcotics Service, Federal Protection Service (Putin’s bodyguard), the Federal Migration Service and Russian Railways, as well as the president’s Chief of Staff and personal confidant Sergei Ivanov.
Putin also continues to thumb his nose at international controversy and threats. Australia’s Tony Abbot is leading the charge to invoke sanctions against Russia after a Dutch report released late on Wednesday night found the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Russian Buk missile trucked in to rebel-held territory in Ukraine.
Abbot notes that MH17 was shot down and it was “fairly clear a missile battery had been moved from Russia into the east of the Ukraine, the rebel-controlled part, fired, downed a civilian aircraft and once they had realized their mistake, gone back to Russia” – a view confirmed by the MH17 investigation.
“Plainly missile batteries don’t go from Russia into Ukraine and back again unless they are Russian military batteries,” he said.
“As I said to President Putin at the time, I don’t hold you personally responsible but I do hold you broadly responsible for what has happened, because you have instigated this conflict, you have supported the rebels, and your missile launcher has brought down the plane.
“That makes him heavily responsible, if not personally guilty for this gruesome atrocity that cost 38 Australian lives and brought untold misery to hundreds of families around the world.
“Mr Putin and Russia need to face up to the truth, no more KGB [the former Soviet spy agency Mr Putin served in] trickery, and offer reparations to those families.”
Putin’s response: grab more power and be deafening silent.