The Purges in Putin's Shrinking Inner Circle

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

John Sipher
@john_sipher
“So it looks like now Putin is getting angry… about the sourcing of the U.S. intelligence about the invasion, and why U.S. intelligence was so good before the invasion, and why the Americans knew so many things about what was coming.”

newyorker.com
The Purges in Putin’s Shrinking Inner Circle
The frustrated Russian leader has punished officials for misjudging the invasion of Ukraine. But ordinary citizens remain in the dark.
2:36 PM · Mar 22, 2022

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-purges-in-putins-shrinking-inner-circle

No paywall
https://archive.ph/1VE3C

I recently spoke by phone with Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist and an expert on the Russian state’s intelligence apparatus. Currently in London, Soldatov—along with Irina Borogan—has written “The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad”; the pair also founded and edits the Web site Agentura.ru, which reports on Russia’s security services. (On Sunday, the site was blocked in the Russian Federation.) I called him to discuss recent reports of purges within the security services after Russian diplomatic and military failures in Ukraine, but our chat ended up touching on a wide range of topics, including the possible reasons for Vladimir Putin’s turn against his intelligence agencies, the increasing power of the military in Russia, the changes and contractions within Putin’s inner circle over the past decade, how ordinary Russians view the current conflict, and why Soldatov himself left Russia in 2020. The conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.

What do we know about internal changes that have occurred in the Russian military and security services since the war in Ukraine began?

What we know is that, since the war began, Putin’s attacked the agencies already, as far as we know. So the war started at this now infamous meeting of the Russian Security Council, where Putin publicly berated the director of the S.V.R., the foreign-intelligence agency, which is a direct successor to the spy section of the K.G.B. Two and a half weeks later, we got news about the F.S.B. foreign-intelligence branch, because the F.S.B. also has a foreign-intelligence branch coming under attack. We now know about two people, two top-level officials at this department, being questioned and placed under house arrest.

Then, last week, we got news that the deputy head of the National Guard was forced to resign, and he will also probably face some sort of a criminal investigation. And he is not just National Guard. This guy is a former security-services person. He was with Putin’s personal security detail before he joined the National Guard, so he’s known personally to Putin.

*snip*

[intrepidity]

1. Haven't read link yet, but is "#FSB Letters" mentioned?

I wonder what role they may be playing.

ETA: for reference

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216479040
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216479069
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216479122
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216479271
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216479459

plus a few more recent ones that can be found elsewhere

[BeyondGeography]

2. Depressing as hell

Russians don’t know the first damn thing about this war (which they think is confined to Donetsk and Luhansk) and don’t care. They believe all the bullshit they are fed.

[Jacque_Joseph]

3. K/R

[maxsolomon]

4. Putin may well be a psychopath on Stalin's level.

Very last sentences: "...I think that’s what we have here with Ukraine. It’s just a manifestation of his complete lack of sympathy for other people."