Just a quick catch-up: over the winter lull, Moscow News ran two columns of mine: ‘Keeping tabs on Putin’s spooks‘, which explores how the Russian intelligence community are at once the beneficiaries of Putin’s re-emergence and yet also under pressure; and ‘The very model of a modern military president‘ presented an unfashionably positive assessment of Russian military reform, and the irony that it took this least martial of presidents actually to start a genuine process (even though there is much still to be done).

Combined with the – in my opinion – likely accession of Kudrin as prime minister in the new Putin presidency, it got me wondering whether Putin really understood the historical parallel he likes to draw. Kudrin in personally close to Putin, but a technocrat rather than a silovik, more interested in modernization that statism. Unlike Medvedev, Kudrin has the stature, personal leeway and character to go nose-to-nose with Putin and demand a degree of control over policy. Furthermore, although I think Putin will will March’s presidential election, it will probably be in a second-round run-off and leave him weaker than he has been at any point since 1999. In short, he will need Kudrin and through the technocrat wing for the political elite and through them, some relationship with the aspirant middle class who represent the base of the current protests.

Kudrin will want to modernize by economic liberalization, which will have powerful socio-economic and thus political implications. It will lead to a drift of power away from the modern chinovniki, the bureaucrats of the state and security apparatuses, and towards the middle class. This is in some ways akin to Stolypin’s “wager on the strong” in the countryside, seeking to privilege a rural yeoman classes a new social backbone of tsarism, while modernizing the urban economy.

Perhaps the real Stolypin would actually be Kudrin. So who does that leave Putin? Possibly Nicholas II, turning to his self-confident (even arrogant) and able prime minister in desperation, despite having little personal sympathy for or understanding of his strategy. The real Stolypin failed to save autocracy from itself. Nicholas was unable or unwilling to support him against increasingly disgruntled aristocratic elites and ultimately may have turned a blind eye to the plot to assassinate him. It remains to be seen whether history offers any repetitions, but I can’t help but wonder how far Putin – no historian – is kidding himself about his own place in history.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 47,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 17 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

His successor is Major General Igor Sergun. We know very little about Sergun (my apologies, by the way: I am writing this on my travels, away from my paper files, and also many of my obvious contacts on this kind of issue aren’t around at this time of year), but he was Shlyakhturov’s deputy and his background appears to have been in field intelligence, including time as a military attache. In other words, he’s career GRU, not a drop-in from elsewhere in the General Staff apparatus. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe he has a Spetsnaz action-man background, either.

So this looks like a very business-as-usual transition. However, what makes this interesting is precisely the length of time it has taken for Shlyakhturov’s fate to be decided – or at least announced – at a time when the GRU is facing serious challenges and a probable further downgrading in status. Today’s confusion as to his departure is just extra indication of this. Although Sergun appears to have been Shlyakhturov’s protege, the choice would not have been his but that of Defence Minister Serdyukov, Chief of the General Staff Makarov, and whoever makes these decisions at the top level – presumably Putin. In this context, it makes sense to choose a spook given that. as the GRU contracts, its defence attache network will be one of the few strategic-level assets it is likely to retain. However, I suspect there is more to it than that. There is a faint suggesttion that the appointment was delayed by the need to secure Sergun’s compliance with plans further to clip the GRU’s wings. There may also have been some interference from the other spook agencies, perhaps as the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) tried to restore its fortunes by asserting a degree of authority over the GRU, albeit with no success. We’ll see.

In what has become almost a ritual, a high level razborka, or execution, will invariably lead the evening news. Announcers dwell lovingly on the details of the murder weapon, the getaway route, the model of Mercedes or Maybach that the victim was driving. Then comes the grainy CCTV footage or mobile phone photos of the deceased slumped over his steering wheel or prone outside the entrance to a lap-dancing club.

Within 24 hours, television stations will have produced computer simulations of the attack, complete with CGI-style graphics. Ballistics experts will be discussing the properties of the weapons used and any cool gadgets involved in the operation. Footage will follow of balaclava-clad police commandoes kicking in doors and cuffing men with abnormally thick necks and lots of tattoos and scars; mugshots of the enemies of the victim, their mob aliases (“Tomato”, “Pussycat”, “Little Japanese”) and their possible motives.

Of course, I am unashamedly a consumer and sometimes purveyor of such salacious stuff, so I am hardly passing any moral judgement. But Clover has the “the drama, gore, technological geekery, secret service acronyms and luxury branding, which accompany the typical Russian mafia hit” exactly right.

“Revolutions are rarely fair fights. Those in power usually have more firepower; they lose not because they are outgunned, but because they will not or cannot use it against their enemies.”

My latest column in the Moscow News , ‘Not 1917, but maybe 1905?‘ picks up where my last blogpost on Moscow’s Praetorians left off, considering the arithmetic of power and also playing the usual historian’s game of looking for parallels. There are some excitable suggestions around that Russia is currently in ’1917′ mode, but it is important to remember that tsarist may well have been moribund, losing its last plausible opportunity for modernizing reform when Stolypin was assassinated in 1911, but what really brought it down then was the hammer-blow of the First World War. Without such a dramatic systemic shock, inertia and aristocratic self-interest may well have kept it lumbering on for a while longer, a zombie regime dead but still mobile. Russia today is, I think, in distinctly better shape. If anything, I would suggest the parallels are more with 1905, when an accidental massacre triggered a nationwide explosion of violent but incoherence anger and protest, one the state could ultimately suppress piecemeal, but a harbinger of greater troubles ahead. I certainly don’t think Putin is yet willing to abdicate…

The Police

The regular police of the Moscow Main Directorate of Internal Affairs (GUVD) number some 50,000. Of greatest relevance are the riot police of the OMON, now renamed KON (Komanda osobennogo naznacheniya, Special Designation Command). There are over 2000 on the Moscow City OMON, who could be reinforced by the parallel Moscow Region KON. They have the full panoply of the usual engines of repression, from water cannon down. They are more than just riot police, though: they are trained and if need be armed for fully-fledged urban combat and fought in that role in the North Caucasus. In addition, there is the Moscow KSN (Komanda spetsnialnogo naznacheniya, Special[ized] Designation Command, formerly OMSN), a smaller SWAT type force, as well as less skilled armed response elements.

The Interior Troops (Vnutrennye voiska MVD)

The Vnutrennye voiska (VV) are militarized security troops who often look nearly indistinguishable from regular military and, indeed, have borne the brunt of the fighting in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. The primary VV force in the capital is the so-called Dzerzhinskii Division, although it no longer technically has this name and is formally the 1^st Separate Special Designation Division (1^aya Otdelnaya diviziya osobennogo naznacheniya, 1^aya ODON). This is a reinforced motor-mechanized division, perhaps 12,000 strong, based at Balashikha, on the eastern outskirts of Moscow. It includes such special additions as a fire-fighting battalion, but it (understandably and encouragingly) lighter in terms of tanks and artillery.  It dates back to 1924 and has an unsullied reputation for obedience to whoever happens to be in the Kremlin: it supported the 1991 August Coup, then 1993 Yeltsin’s ‘October Coup’. In 1994 it was renamed, but the ‘Dzerzhinsky Division’ tag still sticks.

The 1^st ODON used to control the Rus’ and Vityaz special forces elements, but in 2008 they were combined into the MVD VV’s 604^th Special Purpose Center, a Moscow-based commando unit that can be used for counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency or counter-hipster-liberal-protester operations at the Kremlin’s discretion.

Of course, there are lots more MVD VV forces in and around the capital, although some are essentially just command structures or glorified prison guards. There are essentially four types of VV units. The Osnaz (osobennogo naznacheniya, special designation) are, like the 1^st ODON, relatively elite – by security trooper standards. At least they are trained, prepared and reliable; probably of KON standard, if more overtly military in their training. The Opnaz (operativnogo naznacheniya, operational designation) are OK when it comes to basic crowd control and the like, but closer to the level of glorified security guards and ordinary beat cops given some basic riot training. Then there are the units which are just administrative titles for static security guards; the 622^nd MVD VV Detached Battalion, for example, guards Lefortovo prison. And at the other extreme, small special forces like the 604^th. Most noteworthy is the MVD VV 33^rd Special Designation Detachment (OSN, otdel spetsialnogo nazacheniya) ‘Peresvet’ (named after a sainted Russian Orthodox monk, what else?). You’ll find them at Leningradskoe shosse 23a.  The 1^st ODON is the only sizeable osnaz unit in Moscow, but the 21^st MVD VV Detached Osnaz Brigade is based in Sofrino, north-east of Moscow, but could quickly be deployed to the capital. There appear to be two opnaz regiments in Moscow: the 551^st and 687^th MVD VV Regiments, as well as up to five more units, which may well be of battalion strength.

Overall, though, that means that in Moscow or subject to a very quick deployment, the MVD disposes of perhaps 15,000 first-line security troops (including maybe 400 special forces) and another 12,000-15,000 second-line forces. But it would not take long to bring in more units.

The Military

Deploying the military in more than a purely static protective role or for riot lines would be a very serious step. Nonetheless, the main units by Moscow are both relatively elite: the 2^nd Tamanskaya Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (based at Alabino, west of the city) and the 4^th Kantemirovskaya Guards Detached Tank Brigade (at Naro-Fominsk, to the south-west). Then there are also the paratroopers of the 45^th VDV Detached Reconnaissance Regiment (Kubinka) and the commandos of a Spetsnaz Brigade, possibly the 16^th. And as if that were not enough, many more are close by…

The Praetorians

The Federal Protection Service (FSO, Federalnaya sluzhba okhrany) includes the Presidential Regiment (also known as the Kremlin Regiment), a 5,500-strong force charged primarily with guarding the Kremlin and a few other strategic locations, also the smaller Presidential Security Service (PSB, Prezidentskaya sluzhba bezopasnosti), akin to the US Secret Service. The Federal Security Service (FSB) controls the Al’fa counter-terrorist special forces unit within its Special Operations Center (TsSN), which has an estimated 350 commandos (half its total strength) in Moscow. The TsSN also includes the Vympel unit.

Then there are also some paramilitarized elements of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Justice Ministry’s Fakel commando force (which specializes in dealing with prison riots and sieges) and more, but I think that will do for now, as we are already at a whisker under 100,000 men with guns on whom – and so far we have no sense that discipline is a serious problem – the Kremlin can rely…

Consider a recent piece run by Voice of Russia under the rubric Is Russian mafia dangerous? It’s an interesting and telling mix of the accidentally accurate and the (surely?) deliberately propagandistic. Let’s take its various assertions point by point:

The U.S. Department of State claims that Russia has the most dangerous mafia. It must be mentioned, however, that the names of the mafiosos unveiled by the State Department mainly belong to the citizens of Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia and some other countries. …

In July, the US President Barack Obama signed a decree to impose extra sanctions against organized crime groups. Shortly after that, the State Department approved a new list of these crime groups, which says that there is nothing worse than the Russian mafia as far as the US national security is concerned.

I’ve already written about my qualms as to the precise listing of the crime groups noted in this executive order, but if you check out the actual strategy document, it certainly does not identify Russian OC as “the most dangerous mafia” – instead it lists “Eurasian organized crime” as amongst the significant threats (which I would suggest is fair enough), but by no means more than the others. Indeed, in the accompanying executive order, only one Russian gang appears in the list of five…

As regards the matter of non-Russians being involved, that’s absolutely true – but then again that is why the US government tends to use the term Eurasian Organized Crime instead, which clearly does embrace Armenians, etc. At the same time, many of these networks, while multiethnic, do have their center of gravity within Russia itself.

Indeed, the notorious ‘Russian mafia’ was strong in the US in the 1990s, while today there are other criminal groups which pose a much bigger threat to the US, says Sergei Markov, a political expert.

“Criminals from the former Soviet republics are not that dangerous for the US today. The legendary Italian mafia, so well-known thanks to Coppola`s film The Godfather and numerous novels, is still very active in the U.S. In the past 20-30 years, Chinese criminal groups have become much stronger there, too. And with the increasing influx of the Spanish-speaking population into the US, the number of ethnic criminal groups is not declining.”

True – but then again this is taking on a straw man. The US authorities clearly do rate Latin American drug gangs, Chinese gangs, LCN, etc as greater challenges.

Political expert Vilen Ivanov believes that today the term ‘Russian mafia’ is unacceptable.

“This term originated during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was referred to as ‘an evil empire’. But Russia has changed dramatically since then – we have a new regime and a new society. Nevertheless, the attitude does not seem to have changed significantly. Russia remains a rival for the U.S. in some way, causing a kind of a phobia.”

Well, the term ‘Russian mafia’ (or mafiya) really emerged in the 1990s – a specifically post-Cold War phenomenon. Before then, in the 1980s, if I came across it, it was being used by Soviet citizens to talk about their own regime or corrupt cabals within it.

At the same time, ahead of the 2012 presidential elections the Obama administration might want to turn the situation with the ‘Russian mafia’ to their advantage. Since the current US leader approves closer ties with Russia, while his opponents and some US citizens are against it, it may be that the State Department is making negative remarks about Russia on purpose.

Oh, please – we’re back to the whole conspiratorial, military-industrial-bureaucratic complex thesis whereby evil behind-the-scenes manipulators are trying to stop the reset. This is nonsense. We had this during the spy scandal (sure, because it takes a conspiracy to explain why you expel spies), over the Bout case (again, surely only such machinations could explain the persecution of a this poor fellow, who only sought to peddle weapons to terrorists) and now this. In my opinion, if one is going to critique US administration policy it would be that it has been insufficiently robust in dealing with Moscow, but I’ve seen no evidence that the State Department has been trying to stiffen that line – if anything, quite the opposite. Frankly, Russia just isn’t important enough to inside-the-Beltway terms to be such an ideological and political battleground.

So why am I getting so exercised about this? In part it’s just the academic’s proprietorial dislike of seeing one’s own area of specialism misrepresented and mischaracterized for shallow and obvious political interest. But it is also because this kind of propaganda reflects a continuing, willful and disheartening refusal on the part of certain elements within the Moscow elite to recognize certain basic facts:

• Russian, Russian-based and Eurasian organized crime is a serious global issue; sure, not the biggest players in the global underworld, but certainly in the premier league.
• To identify and seek to address the problem is not to be anti-Russian. Arguably, quite the opposite – Russians suffer from the activities of Russian organized crime more than any other people. Despite some successes, the Russian law enforcement structures are unable to manage the problem adequately, so external efforts ought to be welcomed, not resented.
• Politics often are what they seem. US politics in particular, played out as they are amidst the clamor of think tanks and lobbies, under the spotlight of numerous intrusive and partisan media, does not usually lend itself to successful conspiracy. Rather that looking always for some deeper, darker explanation (a key motivation behind the rather foolish political intel mission given those deep-cover spies), Moscow needs to accept that sometimes, the USA means what it says.

Obsessing on invisible and nonexistent subtexts is, after all, one way not to have to think about the text, not to have to face the fact that, as far as the world is concerned, you still are a haven for powerful and sophisticated organized crime gangs, gangs that you seem unable or unwilling systematically to combat…

The criminals were Russian and Estonian nationals. Moscow and Tallinn may be at daggers’ drawn, but it seems that their crooks are still happy to work together when there’s profit to be made.

Well, yes and no. Six key figures have been arrested in Estonia, all Estonians: Vladimir Tsastsin (who had already been convicted on cybercrime charges in the past and is also charged with 22 counts of money laundering), Timur Gerasimenko (Gerassimenko), Dmitri Egorov (Jegorov), Valeri Alekseev (Aleksejev), Konstantin Poltev and Anton Ivanov. It doesn’t take a linguist to note that these are hardly especially Estonian-sounding names. Indeed, the remaining main figure, who is on the run, is a Russian national, but actually has the more Baltic name: Andrei Taame. It looks as if this was actually an ethnic Russian operation, just many of those ethnic Russian hackers and social engineers happened to be members of Estonia’s Russian community.

Yes, criminals do cooperate across national and ethnic lines, but we need not consider them marvels of internationalism. There are all kinds of practical issues which get in the way, from language and culture to the problems of sharing funds in different jurisdictions that mean that the age of the multi-national gang (as opposed to transnational cooperation between gangs) is not yet really with us – although to be sure the Russians tend to be further along that route than most.

Conversely, this was an international law-enforcement operation, involving not just the FBI but also the Estonian and Dutch police. It also demonstrated the power of public-private law enforcement cooperation: other partners included Georgia Tech University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, and private groups such as Neustar, Spamhaus, Team Cymru and Trend Micro, as well as an ad hoc group of subject matter experts known as the DNS Changer Working Group (DCWG).

Nor is this the first case of successful cooperation. Indeed, in last year Estonian Sergei Tsurikov (again, a pretty Russian name), a cybercriminal convicted of participating in a $9 million theft from RBS Worldpay in 2008, was extradited to the USA.

One could speculate that the Estonians might be especially keen to help deal with ethnic Russian criminals, but frankly law-enforcement cooperation is developing well. This is a crucial issue when dealing with cybercrime in particular, given its protean nature. In this context, while Russia itself remains a key locus of world-class cybercriminals (harness the ingenuity of those hackers to the Skolkovo project and you’d have a real intellectual powerhouse) it is saddening that its willingness or ability to cooperate with Western law enforcement on cybercrime cases is still erratic, at best. This may be because of the still-pervasive problem of corruption (although then why does it seem, according to law enforcers I’ve spoken with, to be worse for cybercrime than other serious crimes, including drug trafficking?). It may reflect the technical shortcomings of the Russian police, who are still too often ill-equipped for such investigations and may want to ignore them and yet are unwilling to admit or demonstrate these weaknesses to their foreign counterparts. Or it may have something to do with the systematic cyber-espionage operations cited in last month’s US Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) report Foreign Spies Stealing US Secrets in Cyberspace? Whatever the reason, this is a serious issue, and one which merits being put rather higher on the political agenda. After all, while in the short term Russia may feel it gains – or at least has little to lose – from Russian cybercrime perpetrated against Western governments, companies and individuals, as it slowly develops its economy, it will find itself an increasingly tempting target, especially from rising new ‘cybercrime nations’…