As this chapter will show, political motives for creating and maintaining a large number of powerful quasi-military organizations have been another major determining factor for reforms, or lack thereof, of the sector throughout the post-Soviet years. An important reason for the rise in their number under Yeltsin was a ‘divide-and-rule’ strategy, especially in the early post-Soviet years. Splitting the force structures into smaller institutions diffused challenges from potentially powerful and conservative elements in the former KGB and Ministry of Defence and strengthened the president’s grip on power (Desmond 1995; Moran 2002). When Vladimir Putin rose to prominence in 1999, the political role and influence of the Russian force structures, and of the FSB in particular, became a more widely discussed issue. As is well known, Putin himself has a career background in the KGB and was director of the FSB from July 1998 until March 1999. When he was elected president in 2000 the growing number of siloviki – a term traditionally used in Russian jargon to describe employees in any of the force structures – in official posts caught the attention of analysts both in Russia and in the West (Kryshtanovskaya and White 2003; Renz 2006). As the chapter will show, however, the political significance of the force structures goes far beyond the appointment of individuals to political posts.
On the one hand, the chapter will demonstrate that the characterization of the force structures as a ‘presidential bloc’, maintained by the civilian elite for holding power and securing the regime, holds true today (Vendil Pallin 2007: 3). On the other hand, the perception of a clear break or revival of the force structures under the former KGB officer Vladimir Putin requires some contextualization. It is beyond doubt that Putin has maintained these organizations as an important source of state power and has bolstered the strength of individual force structures, such as the FSB. At the same time it is clear that there is a large degree of continuity from the Yeltsin years. As Dennis Desmond noted in 1995, expectations that Yeltsin would continue the path of democracy and reduce the role of the all-pervasive force structures did not come to pass. He had ‘immediately moved to consolidate his power base and instead strengthen the security services’ (1995: 134). As such, the political system enabling Putin to bolster the force structures and to rely on them as an important power resource had already been put in place by his predecessor.
An overview of the Russian force structures
The MVD is the institutional successor of the Soviet MVD. Until the announcement of significant reforms that removed the domestic troops from this ministry and turned them into the Federal National Guard Service (FSNG) subordinated directly to the president in 2016, the MVD was a hybrid organization serving both as a law-enforcement agency and a military service. Until the 2016 reforms it was also the second-largest Russian force structure (after the Ministry of Defence) with more than one million employees. The range of tasks fulfilled by its various departments was very broad. Its law-enforcement element continues to be in charge of crime fighting and other ‘traditional’ police assignments, including road traffic safety. Due to endemic corruption amongst its personnel, the Russian police have enjoyed a low level of public trust throughout much of the post-Soviet period. In order to deal with this situation, reforms of the police service and a complete rebranding and renaming from militsia to politsia was announced by then-President Medvedev in 2010.
Until 2016 the MVD’s militarized element consisted of approximately 200,000 internal (or domestic) troops, a legacy of the Soviet period. Their tasks included supporting the police in maintaining public security and contributing to the defence of Russian territory and its borders. MVD troops were heavily involved in both Chechen campaigns, where their conduct and inefficiency was strongly criticized, including by commanders of the MoD and FSB troops that were also involved in the conflict and sought to shift blame for military failures to the MVD. Although the domestic troops received combat training and, in the words of Gordon Bennett were ‘made to look like a small army’, they were not equipped or trained for fighting a low-intensity conflict like Chechnya (2000a: 15). As was the case with the regular armed forces discussed in the previous chapter, the need for reforming the interior troops had been an ongoing discussion since the 1990s. However, significant plans for transformation, such as the idea of turning them into a separate service similar to the US National Guard, did not come to fruition until 2016.
According to Brian Taylor, the MVD was the ‘neglected stepchild of the Soviet power ministries’, whose influence was always weaker than that of the Ministry of Defence and the KGB (2007: 7). Although the MVD did not experience serious institutional changes and was not split into numerous entities like the KGB up until 2016, this did not mean that the ministry was able to consolidate or strengthen its influence throughout the post-Soviet period (Taylor 2011: 46). On the contrary, in comparison to the institutional strengthening of the FSB throughout the Putin years and the attention and finances expended on reforming the regular armed forces since 2008, the MVD continued to take a relatively marginal position in the Russian security apparatus. The lack of attention paid to substantially reforming the MVD throughout much of the post-Soviet period came to an abrupt end in April 2016. With next to no prior discussion, the decision to create a new Federal Service, the National Guards, subordinated directly to the president, was announced. The new service was to be based on the assets and personnel of the internal troops as well as on the ministry’s highly trained special assignment units, such as the riot police OMON and the rapid response unit SOBR. As part of the same round of reforms, the Federal Migration Service and drug enforcement agency, the FSKN, which is discussed in more detail below, were disbanded as separate services and subordinated to the MVD. In spite of these additions, the removal of the interior troops and special assignment units have significantly decreased the size and scope of the MVD and as such weakened its position vis-à-vis other powerful force structures. At the same time, the reforms meant that with the removal of its distinctly militarized element, it has become a more ‘modern’ institution at least in the sense that it now corresponds more closely to the remit of interior ministries in Western states.
The MChS emerged from the Russian Rescue Corps, which had been set up by RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin in response to the need for an integrated system of rescue and emergency response, in 1990. It was designated a State Committee by presidential degree in 1991 and in the same year more than 20,000 military personnel serving as civil defence troops under the Ministry of Defence were transferred to this new structure. With the integration of the around 250,000-strong State Fire Service in 2002, it has since become the country’s third-largest force structure. The MChS and its predecessors were created in response to the need to deal more effectively with the consequences of natural and man-made disasters. Memories of the Soviet force structures’ failure to cope with catastrophes, such as the Chernobyl nuclear reactor incident in 1986 and the earthquake in Armenia in 1988, informed this decision (Thomas 1995: 227). The ministry’s tasks are extremely varied and the specialization of its personnel is wide-ranging. The MChS’s largest element, the State Fire Service, is responsible for the work of fire services throughout the country. Its rescue forces provide rescue services and respond to the nationwide emergency telephone service. The civil defence troops, which underwent several transformation attempts, were reorganized into Military Rescue Units by presidential decree in 2011. The units comprise approximately 24,000 employees, of which around one-third are military personnel, both conscripts and professionals (MChS website: ‘Spasatel’nye voinskie formirovaniia’). The aim of this reorganization was to make these troops more efficient by turning them into permanent readiness units. According to the MChS website, the change resulted in considerable improvements of the units’ mobility and preparedness for responding to crisis situations (MChS website: ‘O grazhdanskoi oborone’).