Volgograd railway station, the moment the bomb explodes
The terrible spectacle–visible on CCTV footage–of the latest terrorist bombing in Volgograd is another tragedy in a blood-red litany of massacres and miseries associated with the North Caucasus. It is hardly a coincidence that as Sochi nears, so does the tempo of attacks outside the North Caucasus region itself: the Volgograd bus bombing in October, Friday’s car bomb in Pyatigorsk, now this.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 29, 2013
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2013/12/29/volgograds-second-bombing-demonstrates-terrorists-strengths-and-weaknesses/
With news of the arrest in Thessaloniki of Georgian vor v zakone David Mazanashvili (“Dato Rustavsky”), a member of the same Kutaisi “clan” targeted in this summer’s Europe-wide raids under Operation Skhodka, it is worth briefly remembering that Greece, while not on quite the same scale as–until recently–the Spanish coastline or Germany, is very much an area of interest to gangsters from Russia and post-Soviet Eurasia. Although Russian gangsters were attracted there in the 1990s by the climate, not-too-intimidating law enforcement and, let’s be honest, relative ease of acquiring forged documents and local passports–most notoriously the contract killed Alexander Solonik, who was murdered there himself in 1997–increasingly the country has come within the orbit of ethnic Georgian gangsters. To some extent this reflects the 1990s influx of ethnic Greeks (Pontian Greeks), especially from Georgia , who became bridges between the two underworlds.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 24, 2013
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2013/12/24/the-other-greek-tragedy-georgian-and-russianeurasian-organized-crime/
I’m not sure whether to be reassured or alarmed that the RVSN, Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, have this year started receiving a special new armored vehicle, the Typhoon-M, which they describe as a “combat anti-sabotage vehicle that is used for the protection and defense of missile systems, reconnaissance and fighting the enemy’s ranger units.” So far, they have been issued to the Teikovo, Novosibirsk and Tagil RS-24 Yars missile regiments. These go to the forces of the 12th GUMO (12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense), which handles physical security for the RVSN.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 17, 2013
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/russias-strategic-rocket-forces-get-typhoon-m-anti-sabotage-vehicles-do-they-know-something-we-dont/
A revised and updated version of this post is up on the Russia! website, here.
Russia’s new draft Public Security Policy says that corruption ought to be considered a serious national security threat—something I’ve long argued—and also suggests that it is a growing challenge. After all,
We are seeing stable tendencies towards the merging of the interests of businesses and officials and inclusion in corruption schemes of officials and foreign businessmen.
Now, I don’t read “stable” in this passage as being a compliment, but rather meaning a continuing one, given that it is in the context of a process that is taking place, and the document admits that (more…)
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 8, 2013
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/russias-anticorruption-campaign-putin-hopes-the-kgb-veterans-in-the-presidential-admin-can-turn-the-tide/
SBU special forces, armed and ready
I honestly have no idea what will happen in Kiev, whether the regime will fracture and crumble, whether the protests will subside, whether martial law has been declared: I am not a Ukrainian politics specialist and in any case, this is one of those situations in which I feel all bets are off and the only real question is who is the most plausible and lucky guessers amongst the assembled ranks of pundits. However, in a depressive moment, togo with my previous note on Berkut, I thought I’d quickly throw together a list of — to my knowledge, at least — the security forces available either in Kiev or close by. Of course, treat this with some caution, not least as it would be easy for the government quickly to bring in reinforcements from other police, Interior Troop and army commands. Still, I hope this list remains of no more than academic interest.
MVS Police
Central MVS assets
‘Sokil’ (Falcon) police commando unit
Kiev City Berkut Regiment – c. 450
Kiev City Berkut Regiment – c. 450
Kiev Region Berkut Regiment – c. 350?
Kiev City Police (especially its Public Order Directorate) – total force c. 11,000 cops
Cadets from the Kiev MVS Police Academy
MVS Interior Troops (VV)
Unit 3027 Bars (‘Snow Leopard’) MVS VV Special Purpose Brigade
Omega counter-terrorist company
22nd MVS VV Special Purpose Brigade
25th MVS VV Special Motorized Police Brigade
3rd MVS VV Brigade
Cadets from the MVS VV Academy
State Guard Directorate (UDO)
Some 2900 armed officers, mainly in Kiev
Titan special security unit
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU)
Security Directorate
Alfa counter-terrorist unit
Army
72nd Guards Mechanized Brigade: some 3,000 troops at Bila Tserkva, 80 km south of Kiev
Силы безопасности в и близко в Киев: предварительной оценки
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 1, 2013
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/security-forces-in-and-close-to-kiev-a-preliminary-tally/
Berkut at Work
As the terrible events in Kiev unfold, I’m getting increasing media queries about Berkut (‘Golden Eagle’), the Ukrainian riot police busily out on their skull-cracking work, so I thought it might be useful to post a quick summary here. In short, they are the descendants of the Soviet OMON and thus very similar to their Russian OMON counterparts (the acronym now stands for Special Purpose Mobile Units, even since the militsiya was renamed politsiya and no one much liked OPON as a new name). They even wear the same blue urban camouflage or black uniforms (although just to show that they are their own men, they wear maroon berets instead of their Russians’ black ones). In other words, Berkut (click here for a gung-ho recruitment video) fulfills a range of roles, from armed support to the regular police (such as in raids on gang headquarters), through additional patrollers on the streets. However, their prime and backstop role, as here, is in public order duties. Members either apply directly or are recruited from regular police and disproportionately served in the paratroopers or Naval Infantry (marines). Whatever one may feel about what they do, in fairness they are pretty good at it: they know how to pick the right kinds of recruits, train them well and keep them at a good level of physical and moral conditioning. As I say, this is a technical observation about their skills, not a moral judgement…
Posted by Mark Galeotti on December 1, 2013
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/berkut-yanukovichs-stormtroopers/
