The Ministry of Defense announced the first major personnel change immediately after the start of mobilization. Shoigu’s deputy, Dmitry Bulgakov, who was responsible for the logistics of the troops, resigned “due to a transfer to another job.” In parallel with this, many military commissars of the constituent entities also changed their jobs, allegedly in connection with the “planned rotation of personnel,” which is very annoying even for the average person.
The director of the Russian Guard, Viktor Zolotov, behaves suspiciously quietly at first. His department has been participating in the SVO from the very beginning, but Zolotov himself does not give any comments; he simply does not exist in the media space, which may indicate that he is not personally allowed to participate in the operation. Let us recall that earlier there were claims against the Russian Guard in matters of material support; the first deputy director of the Russian Guard, Roman Gavrilov, was removed from his post.
In August, the FSB special forces were left without a leader. Colonel General Alexander Tikhonov has served as head of special forces since 1998. The official reason for dismissal from military service is “reaching the age limit,” which is very strange, since during the SVO period, not only is no one dismissed, but they are not even allowed to go on vacation.
In September, it became known that the head of the FSB Investigation Department, Vasily Petukhov, may soon leave his post, whose unit investigated particularly high-profile criminal cases against the country’s security, and during the period of the SVO, worked with real spies and state traitors, even despite the fact that it was “famous” for its work in the case against journalist Ivan Safronov.
Protecting digital sovereignty and cybersecurity has also failed. The chairs began to shake under many heads of the FSB CIB, including the head of the 2nd Directorate Oleg Kashintsov, who failed the country’s cybersecurity. Through the imprisonment of Stroganov (Flint), Sachkov (Group IB), Kozlovsky (Lurk) and other IT specialists, the CIB nullified Russian cyber troops. Sources confirm that Kashintsov, when preparing certificates for the director of the FSB and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, did not reflect in them that Stroganov, for example, provided cybersecurity during the Russian Mundeal, Sachkov is being pulled along by a convicted agent of Western intelligence services Mikhailov (Kashintsov’s former boss at the CIB), and Kozlovsky most likely was an FSB agent embedded in a hacker group Lurk, who was sent to prison by the CIB for keeping company with real hackers.
Also, investigator Vernigorov, who led the investigation into the case of the aforementioned Alexey Stroganov (Flint) for three years, was dismissed from the investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. The fate of the investigators connected with the cases of Sachkov, Kozlovsky and other IT specialists is not known for certain, although the alleged resignation of the head of the FSB Investigation Department Petukhov indirectly indicates something bad.
By the beginning of the Northern Military District, the situation had developed that all Russian IT specialists who formed the basis of the cyber forces, including those who had state awards, ended up in prison based on materials received from the United States or on tips from US agents. Now it is obvious that there is a reverse wave – purges of those who contributed to the weakening of the country’s cybersecurity have begun. The only winner in this rearrangement of chairs is the FSB Internal Security Service, which is responsible for the purges. Perhaps we will soon see a new influential FSB “tower” on the horizon.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”