The FSB today is tasked with many of the functions carried out by its institutional predecessor and its growing power throughout the post-Soviet years demonstrates that internal control and regime stability continues to be a major factor in Russian security and defence policy. Reflecting the variety of structures under its command, the FSB’s areas of responsibility are wide-ranging. They include intelligence and counterintelligence activities, dealing with organized crime and corruption on a national and international level, counter-terrorism, ensuring information security and the guarding of Russia’s vast state borders. The FSB’s economic security service is in charge of investigating economic crimes and monitoring financial activities, including those of foreign financial corporations with offices in Russia (Bacon et al. 2006: 157–8). The FSB is playing an important role in Russian cybersecurity and counterintelligence operations involving internet infrastructure. These are conducted by the FSB’s Information Security Centre, which was created on the basis of FAPSI’s Department of Computer and Information Security. The Centre works closely with the MVD’s Directorate K in charge of cybercrime (Taia Global 2015).
The FSB can be described as a quasi-military organization as it employs both civilian and military personnel. Its most prominent militarized elements are the special assignment units (spetsnaz) in charge of counter-terrorism, Alfa and Vympel. Both were established during the Cold War. Alfa was created in 1974 within the KGB’s 7th Directorate (Surveillance) in view of the upcoming Moscow Olympics. A counter-terrorism outfit similar to the German GSG-9, which had been created in response to the 1972 Munich Olympic terrorist attacks, was seen as essential in order to provide security at this event. Vympel was established in 1981 as part of the KGB’s 1st Chief Directorate (overseas espionage) predominantly for missions abroad, such as the war in Afghanistan (Galeotti 2013: 35–43). Today these units operate as part of the FSB’s Special Operations Centre, which was created in 1998 by then-director of the FSB Vladimir Putin. The rationale for creating this centre was to bring under one umbrella all of the service’s special assignment units for a coordinated approach to the fight against international terrorism and extremism, as well as organized criminal groups (FSB website 2013). Both units were fighting alongside MVD and MoD troops in Chechnya and were centrally involved in the counter-terrorist operations ending the hostage crises in a Moscow theatre in 2002 and in Beslan in 2004 (Renz 2005). An amendment to the law ‘On Counteracting Terrorism’, which had been adopted in March 2006, granted the president the power to send FSB units to fight terrorism abroad (Remington 2009: 51; Soldatov and Borogan 2011: 249). At a meeting of the FSB collegium in February 2016, Putin openly acknowledged that FSB personnel were actively involved in the intervention in Syria, thanking their ‘counterterrorism units active within the country’ for their efforts (Putin 2016b).
Military personnel are also employed in the FSB’s Border Guard Service. Given the vastness of the country’s territory and the length of its borders, border guarding has been a historically important and difficult task for the Russian military, as porous borders that were hard to protect have been an important source of insecurity. During the Soviet era, the full length of the country’s borders was protected by militarized border guard troops. Having been subordinated to the KGB in 1957, these troops were comparable in numerical strength and equipment to some countries’ entire armed forces, and by the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union they had under their command around 190,000 personnel. During their existence as a federal service from 1993 until 2003, the Border Guard Troops continued to operate essentially as a military organization. Substantial reforms occurred only following their resubordination to the FSB in 2003. The principle of ‘linear’ protection of the entire length of Russia’s border was abandoned in favour of relying on intelligence, reconnaissance and technology. The border service’s personnel was reduced to around 100,000 personnel, all of whom are professionals. Its operating procedures remain militarized only at some particularly troublesome stretches of border (Nikolsky 2013a).
The FSKN was created by presidential decree in 2003. It was based on the personnel and material assets of the Federal Tax Police Service, which had been created by Yeltsin in 1992 and the disbandment of which was announced in the same decree. Although it was abolished as a separate service and subordinated to the MVD in 2016, this force structure deserves attention in this chapter, because the circumstances of its creation and dissolution exemplify many of the drivers and problems pertaining to reforms of the Russian security apparatus in the post-Soviet era as discussed further below. The FSKN is an interesting case because, unlike the majority of other force structures, it did not emerge from one of the Soviet power ministries. Instead, it was created from scratch and in response to a ‘new’ security challenge. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the scale and the trade and consumption of illegal drugs in Russia had been negligible compared to the threat this issue posed to states in the West (Schaffer Conroy 1990: 457). The opening of borders resulted in the rapid expansion of the drug trade and consumption. Over the next two decades Russia developed one of the world’s largest populations of injecting drug users and also witnessed a fast growing HIV/AIDS epidemic (United Nations 2008).
Initially, the Russian leadership sought to counter these developments by using the combined efforts of the MVD, the FSB and the Border Guard Service. However, this never resulted in a coherent counternarcotics strategy and the expansion of the drug market into the country continued unabated (Paoli 2002). In order to enable a more effective approach to the fight against drugs, the FSKN was created with an establishment strength of 40,000 personnel. The FSKN was often compared to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Although their basic tasks were indeed similar, there were also two important differences. First, with its establishment strength of 40,000, the FSKN was almost four times the size of the DEA with just around 10,000 employees. Second, whereas the work of the DEA is overseen by the US Department of Justice, the FSKN was answerable directly to the Russian president, raising questions of transparency and accountability. The FSKN was created in part in response to the need for better coordination of Russia’s counternarcotics strategy. This meant its designated remit included stemming both the supply side and the demand side of the illegal market. From the outset, there were concerns that as a force structure the FSKN would emphasize law-enforcement operations at the expense of counter-demand interventions, such as educational work and dealing with social problems. Throughout its existence there were frequent critical reports about its repressive approaches, which tainted its image as an institution able to pursue a balanced counternarcotics strategy (Renz 2011: 64–6).