Putin Purges Begin, With the Head of the FSB Sent to Prison, 150 Agents Fired –As the world has watched for weeks, the Ukrainian invasion has gone poorly for Russia. They have failed to capture Kyiv, the military suffered horrendous casualties and the Russian economy has taken a huge hit as Western sanctions, which are continuing and growing take a toll.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pines for the days of the Soviet Union is dusting off some of the Stalin-era policies when things don’t go his way. He’s purging the military and his intelligence service.
Putin has reportedly fired up to 150 FSB agents from the Fifth Service, his former colleagues, as he began his adult life in the KGB, the predecessor to the FSB, and sent the commander of the Fifth Service, Sergei Beseda to the infamous Lefortovo Prison.
Stalin, coincidentally used the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB to send people to Lefortovo for interrogation, and was infamous for its torture and abuse. Previously Beseda had been under house arrest.
Andrei Soldatov, an expert analyst on Russia’s intelligence tweeted Friday that Beseda and his deputy, who had been under house arrest were suspected of being moles for the Western intelligence services and could have possibly leaked information about Russia’s plans to the West. Reportedly Putin and some of his top advisers were appalled at how accurate US intelligence was prior to the war starting in Ukraine.
“I was surprised by this. Putin could have very easily just fired him or sent him off to some regional job in Siberia. Lefortovo is not a nice place and sending him there is a signal as to how seriously Putin takes this stuff.”
Beseda was placed under house arrest for “reporting false information to the Kremlin about the real situation in Ukraine before the invasion” according to Cristo Grozev the head of the investigative arm of Bellingcat.
Putin created the Fifth Service in 1998, while he was still the director of the FSB to operate in the countries of the former Soviet Union and conduct operations, cultivate intelligence sources, and gather intelligence to keep those breakaway republics still under the influence of Russia.
This isn’t a new development. Back in 2016, when Russian interference in the US presidential elections came to light, Putin was incensed as well as paranoid about what American intelligence was able to learn about the Russian operation. The Information Security Center of the FSB was purged, and the deputy head of the center, Sergei Mikhailov, was sent to Lefortovo under a charge of treason.
Fast forward to 2022, Russia’s expected easy victory over Ukraine has not come close to materializing. And Putin is blaming his generals for his decision to invade. So overconfident were the Russians of a cakewalk against outnumbered Ukrainian troops that they included members of the Rosgvardia, Russia’s National Guard in the initial assault. They suffered heavy casualties.
So, Putin then fired Roman Gavrilov, the deputy chief of Rosgvardia. But he isn’t alone. According to a report from London, Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s security council, said that Putin has sacked eight generals due to the Russian’s inability to easily take Ukraine, which his security officials told him that the country was weak, riddled with Neo-Nazis and would surrender quickly once they were attacked.
While Putin and Russia continue with the myth of ridding Ukraine of Nazis, it is they who are falling back to the tactics of the same era as Putin is acting like Stalin by arresting generals who fail or underperform and sending them to the infamous Lefortovo Prison.
Putin continues to insist that Russia “had no other choice” but to invade Ukraine. “There is no doubt” the war will be successful, he added in a statement he made in eastern Russia during a visit to a spaceport
Steve Balestrieri is a 1945 National Security Columnist. He has served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer before injuries forced his early separation. In addition to writing for 19fortyfive.com, he has covered the NFL for PatsFans.com for more than 10 years and his work was regularly featured in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and Grafton News newspapers in Massachusetts.
