In this week’s column for the Moscow News, ‘Tough job for Russia’s new military police‘, I return to the vexed issues of crime in the ranks (still monstrously high) and the prospects for the new voennaya politsiya, something I’ve already written on here, although at that point without the benefit of Main Military Prosecutor Fridinskii’s splendid recent soundbite that “the scope of military corruption is mindboggling; it seems people have lost shame and a sense of proportion.” Nonetheless, the point does need to be reiterated that no police force – especially one drawn from an already-all-too-often-corrupted service – can ‘fix’ the problem. That needs to be a cultural process, a transformation of the Russian military that includes effective and law-based policing, but also extends to respect for all ranks, transparency of expenditures and a culture that holds senior officers to account. I think it’s a great step forward – but I’ll really start to believe in the VP when I see a senior officer in handcuffs, or them raid one of the underground factories producing counterfeit that you can still find sited on remote military bases to enjoy their “extraterritoriality” from regular law enforcement.
On Military Police in the Moscow News
Posted by Mark Galeotti on November 1, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/on-military-police-in-the-moscow-news/
More on the GRU and its hard times
I return to the question of why the GRU is having a hard time of it at the moment (and is likely to continue to do so for a while) in my latest Moscow News column, Spooks Under Fire. They are suffering in part for being too obstreperous (and CoGS Makarov is looking to assert his authority) and also because Putin is becoming less tolerant of overlaps and turf wars within the intelligence community. Brian Whitmore makes some interesting additional observations in his latest Power Vertical blog post. We still await to hear whether military intelligence chief General Shlyakhturov will return to his post from his lengthy ‘medical leave’ – I suspect not.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on October 21, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/more-on-the-gru-and-its-hard-times/
New Badges for the Russian Police
According to the Marker business weekly, the MVD is spending over 20 million rubles ($650,000) on half a million new police arm badges, to be delivered by December 15. Generally, these will be black with a symbol and a colored edging showing the specific service and rank. They look a little tackily plastic, but that may just be the pictures. We’ll see.
These are presumably intended to go with their new(ish) uniforms.
The standard sleeve badge is reproduced here (the glossier new badge is on the right), with the new metal ‘shield’ badge below, but are you a true cop-wonk eager to see the full range of new badges? Then…
Posted by Mark Galeotti on October 16, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/new-badges-for-the-russian-police/
The GRU: looking back at the view when Shlyakhturov was appointed
It does look likely that GRU chief Shlyakhturov is going to be dismissed in due course. When his predecessor, Korabelnikov, was sacked in April 2009, I wrote this brief for Oxford Analytica:
Oxford_Analytica_RUSSIA_GRU_chief_s_dismissal_opens_door_to_reform_tmp1F6D
(I should note that this article was originally published in The Oxford Analytica Daily Brief and is produced here with kind permission.)
Let me just note the three key issues I identified, in part to pat myself on the back, in part to look to the future:
- GRU’s Future: I suggested that the GRU would survive, but in less grand form, no longer a federal body in its own rights but more closely subordinated to the Chief of the General Staff. The formal redesignation of the GRU hasn’t happened yet (but I think it will) but it is certainly more under Makarov’s thumb. Next year it may simply become a regular rather than main directorate of the General Staff and be forced to move out of its recently-built HQ in Khodinka (not least because of the profit to be made from selling that tasty bit of real estate).
- Spetsnaz Reshuffle: the five surviving Spetsnaz brigades have indeed been transferred from military intelligence to regular territorial army commands.
- Shifting Priorities: I thought the GRU would concentrate on core military intel missions and this does seem to be happening, with the closure or reduction of much of their pol-mil gathering and analysis elements, as well as a lot of their resources in Latin America and Africa. Expect to see them concentrating on conventional military intel missions and on Asia, Central Asia and the West.
Now what, though? We await to hear of Shlyakhturov’s fate and who succeeds him.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on October 10, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/the-gru-looking-back-at-the-view-when-shlyakhturov-was-appointed/
New head of the GOU: Lt Gen Vladimir Zarudnitsky
The Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate (GOU) has a distinguished past, a rather lackluster present and an uncertain future. Sometimes rightly described as the ‘brain of the army‘ (unkind souls may regard that as a rather low bar, akin to being the ‘soul of the tax office’ or ‘heart of the Chekist’), the GOU is at once a planning body, a liaison agency with other federal power agencies such as the MVD and FSB, a kind of operational think tank and an incubator of the brightest military thinkers. Or at least that’s the plan. In recent years it has been in disarray: four chiefs in four years, a massive cut in staff from 500 to 150, and a very poor performance in the 2008 Georgian invasion, which was in a number of ways handled very badly. On the other hand, given the paucity of present military thought (something Chief of the General Staff Makarov himself admits), and the current drive to reform the military and create a meaningful operational art for the new brigade-based structure, I’d suggest that the need for the GOU has never been greater.
Anyway, on October 3 GOU chief Lt. Gen. Tretyak for formally dismissed, although he had requested to be released on medical grounds in the summer and had already physically moved out of his office. In his place comes Lt. Gen. Vladimir Zarudnitsky, a line officer with a reasonable but not especially impressive resume Read the full post »
Posted by Mark Galeotti on October 5, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/new-head-of-the-gou-lt-gen-vladimir-zarudnitsky/
The FSB’s alleged order on hunting and killing targets abroad – hard to credit
The UK Daily Telegraph made quite a splash with the leak of what seems to be a secret internal FSB (Federal Security Service) document promulgating a new directive on the “observation, identification, possible return to the Russian Federation” of suspected terrorists, extremists and wanted criminals. It added that “under special directives” the FSB and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) could also be tasked with the “elimination outside of the Russian Federation in the countries of Near Abroad and in the European Union, of the leaders of unlawful terrorist groups and organisations, extremist formations and associations, of individuals who have left Russia illegally [and are] wanted by federal law enforcement.” All good, exciting stuff and coincidentally fitting well with the recent assassination of Chechens in Istanbul.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on October 4, 2011
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/the-fsbs-alleged-order-on-hunting-and-killing-targets-abroad-hard-to-credit/
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