Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:36A guard, a collective farmer, or a poisoner, the reform
00:00:39of the main security agency. The main actor
00:00:43in the so-called reform is the head of Rosneft,
00:00:47Igor Sechin. Alexandra Bortnikov is being retired. According
00:00:51to one version, Putin does not want
00:00:53a professional FSB officer, well, that is, a professional
00:00:57leader, to head this structure, because
00:01:00it will strengthen it even more. Russia is suffering defeat in Donbas and
00:01:04bombs Ukraine daily. There
00:01:06they have to, as some military correspondents say,
00:01:10retreat to pre-prepared positions, this
00:01:13is true. Is Putin ready to impose martial law?
00:01:17The fact that Belousov dreams of conscripting
00:01:20another several hundred thousand people into the army
00:01:47Let's start with almost secular news: the FSB
00:01:51decided to increase comfort for its leadership, the project was published
00:01:55on the portal of regulatory legal acts, writes the agency.
00:01:58According to the document, board members are allowed
00:02:02to fly first class, I leaned back completely,
00:02:05completely leaned back, lay down, and I still have this much left, even if you
00:02:09are 1.90 meters, probably, 2-3, you will be quite
00:02:13comfortable here, and not only for official matters, first
00:02:16class will be available even to vacationers, including family
00:02:20members, some colonels will get comfort class, all
00:02:23of this will of course be paid for by the state, that is, us
00:02:26taxpayers, the news perfectly confirms:
00:02:30The thesis: Chekists are indeed becoming the new
00:02:33nobility in Russia. Privileges exist, status also
00:02:36exists, but first class is just the tip of
00:02:39the iceberg. Much more interesting is what is happening
00:02:43inside the FSB itself. Lately, the word "reform" has been heard.
00:02:47Journalists and experts write about it. The FSB has long
00:02:50gone far beyond security.
00:02:53Today, the FSB controls the courts,
00:02:56controls investigations, controls the prosecutor's office.
00:03:48Roman Anin, the founder of Important Stories, also speaks about possible changes. It's not just about
00:03:51personnel changes, experts talk about a conflict
00:03:55within the system. The fact that these clans for
00:03:5825 years that they have been in power
00:04:02have constantly fought with each other, these power clans, well, for example, we listed various special services
00:04:06forgot to mention such an important agency as
00:04:09Rosgvardiya, which is headed by Putin's former
00:04:12bodyguard, Viktor Zolotov, nicknamed "perforated" in
00:04:15the criminal world of St. Petersburg, he had such a nickname because, as
00:04:18one of the leaders of this criminal world admitted to me, he is an absolutely
00:04:22stupid person with an IQ of an Australopithecus, who at the same time
00:04:25is ready for any cruelty by order
00:04:29of the Tsar. So, for example, Zolotov fought with Patrushev all his life, they simply
00:04:33hate each other, and Sechin fought with Medvedev all his life, they also hate
00:04:36each other, when these clans are always fighting with each other, then when
00:04:40you have only one factor that balances these wars,
00:04:44it is actually the Tsar himself, when the Tsar begins to weaken, Patrushev inevitably
00:04:48thinks that if, say, Zolotov or someone from his
00:04:52clan, like Dyumin or Mironov or someone else, comes to power,
00:04:55then it's the end for Patrushev, exactly the same thing is thought by Dyumin or
00:04:59Mironov. Therefore, they inevitably start fighting with each other, because
00:05:03they are afraid that if one does not start acting, the other will start acting, that's why this
00:05:06construction, in my opinion, is very shaky, and here another
00:05:10paradox appears, the Kremlin... strengthened the FSB for decades,
00:05:14now it itself begins to fear the monster, says Gennady
00:05:18Gudkov and speaks about a possible change in leadership, and
00:05:21an unusual option is being discussed: a new
00:05:24director may come from outside, not a career Chekist and not a general,
00:05:28but a person with a civilian background, for the FSB this would be a serious
00:05:31signal, possibly only the beginning of a major restructuring.
00:05:35Putin is concerned about the sharp increase
00:05:39in the FSB's influence, already political influence.
00:05:42Not just that they are carving up
00:05:46some enterprises, robbing there, participating in corrupt
00:05:49schemes, he is concerned about the increased political
00:05:52influence of the FSB, right now, when the question
00:05:56of Bortnikov's retirement
00:05:59is being decided, all people in the near-Kremlin circles
00:06:02confirm, at least, they know it,
00:06:06one of the versions I heard
00:06:09from more competent people... of the version
00:06:13Putin does not want a professional
00:06:16FSB officer, well, that is a professional leader, a person
00:06:20who made a career there, to head this structure, because this
00:06:24will strengthen it even more, the people who today head
00:06:27the FSB, they participate in the arrangement of all the most influential
00:06:31clans in Russia, in these internal squabbles, in this
00:06:34struggle, and there is even such a thought, I
00:06:38have already heard it, that Putin is now looking for a candidate from outside, to
00:06:42put him at the head of the FSB, well, just
00:06:45as the Politburo once put Andropov at
00:06:47the head of the KGB, who was
00:06:51a Secretary of the Central Committee, and had no relation to special services. This
00:06:54way, the political influence of the KGB was reduced. After
00:06:57all, Andropov was a political figure, more
00:07:01connected with party bodies than
00:07:05with special services.
00:07:08Putin, I heard that he
00:07:11wants to repeat this experience. According to journalist
00:07:14Sergei Kanev of The Insider, changes in the FSB may
00:07:18begin after Alexander Bortnikov's anniversary. On November
00:07:2115, the FSB director will turn 75, possibly
00:07:24along with a farewell to retirement. It is after this
00:07:28date that a personnel reshuffle of the agency may begin. Kanev considers
00:07:32Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft,
00:07:35one of the main players in the struggle for influence. As it
00:07:38seems to me, such a main actor
00:07:41in this so-called reform
00:07:44is the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin,
00:07:48who is once again trying
00:07:52to put his people in key positions in
00:07:55the FSB. And his main protégé
00:07:58candidate is General Ivan Tkachev,
00:08:01nicknamed "the collective farmer". In his time, Ivan Tkachev
00:08:05headed the Sixth Service of the FSB's Internal Security Directorate, the so-called
00:08:08Sechin special forces,
00:08:11then Sechin moved him to
00:08:14the CA Department, the banking department of the FSB.
00:08:17Now Tkachev
00:08:20sits in the chair of the head
00:08:24of counterintelligence of the FSB,
00:08:27military counterintelligence of the FSB, that is, he controls the entire
00:08:30army, and I think
00:08:33he is trying to move
00:08:35Tkachev
00:08:38to the leadership of the FSB. There
00:08:40is also another influential figure -
00:08:44Alexei Sidov. He heads the Second Service
00:08:47of the FSB. This unit is responsible for protecting the constitutional
00:08:51order. Sidov has been at the head of the service since
00:08:542006. He began his career in the Leningrad KGB, so
00:08:58he is considered part of the St. Petersburg Chekist group. Sidov was
00:09:02described in an interview by former employee of the Second Service of the FSB,
00:09:05Alexander Fedotov. A year ago he fled Russia.
00:09:08As far as I know, Syudov has the right to make a call.
00:09:12directly to the first person, Vladimir
00:09:15Putin, he is a member of the St. Petersburg
00:09:18group, having joined the SBT in 2006,
00:09:22he was then, I believe, a Major General, he
00:09:25received unusually
00:09:28rapid career advancement to General of the Army, because
00:09:32not all FSB directors are
00:09:35Generals of the Army, and Sidov is formally not even
00:09:39a deputy director, he is tough, he is really tough, for example, when he
00:09:42called me on the phone
00:09:46while I was on the road, because for communication with him I had a phone
00:09:49in my office, right without a dial, so I picked up
00:09:53the receiver, I understood that he was calling, but when he called from the road, he, for example, never
00:09:56greeted, he always said, "This is Sidov," so
00:10:00it sounded like a roar, like a lion, such is Sidov
00:10:04in practice, Sidov's second service also deals with political
00:10:08control, among its areas is the fight against so-called
00:10:11political... We all know, thanks to Christo Grozev's investigations,
00:10:15the role of officers of the second service in
00:10:18the poisoning of Navalny, in the poisoning of other
00:10:21oppositionists, and it is important to understand that...
00:10:25The second service, we know about its most bloodthirsty
00:10:28manifestations and examples, but it has
00:10:32a very wide range of functions, for example, few people know that it is the second service that oversees all
00:10:36education in Russia, and in the second
00:10:38service there is such a department for combating terrorism
00:10:42and political extremism, the UBTPA,
00:10:45and it is precisely this that is responsible for all education, when I say
00:10:48responsible, what does this mean in practice, in practice it means that
00:10:52for example in the Ministry of Education there will definitely be... as
00:10:56part of the ministry, as a rule, it is the deputy minister,
00:11:00who will be delegated there, seconded there from
00:11:02the FSB, and he will ensure that no
00:11:06orders, no decisions are made that could, God
00:11:10forbid, negatively affect the
00:11:13patriotic upbringing of future
00:11:16youth, in key universities of Russia, there are seconded employees who
00:11:20monitor the
00:11:23moods of students and...
00:12:04And this is especially interesting now, because the personnel struggle within
00:12:07the FSB continues, old players do not
00:12:11disappear. General Beseda is
00:12:15in the circle of untouchables,
00:12:18that is, whatever he does, nothing will happen to him. Well, yes, he failed
00:12:21the Ukrainian direction, well, yes.
00:12:25He paid too much attention to Yanukovych,
00:12:29Azarov, the former prime minister, who whispered
00:12:32in his ear that Ukrainians
00:12:35were just waiting for Russian tanks and would
00:12:38meet them with lard and garlic, this did not
00:12:41happen, therefore Beseda was
00:12:45removed from the leadership of the fifth service
00:12:48of the FSB, the same FSB intelligence, and
00:12:51moved closer to
00:12:54the administration. president,
00:12:57he works as a consultant,
00:13:00lives in luxury, nothing will happen to him,
00:13:03everything is great for him. While the struggle for power,
00:13:07business assets and elite privileges continues within the agency,
00:13:10the main result of the special service's work
00:13:13remains deplorable, decades of complete carte blanche
00:13:17from the Kremlin and multi-billion dollar budgets have resulted only in a series
00:13:20of spectacular failures on the external and internal fronts.
00:13:24About the most resonant fatal mistakes. The FSB of Vladimir
00:13:28Putin's era in our correspondent's material. Checklist
00:13:31of questions to an FSB officer. I deleted
00:13:33the correspondence.
00:13:36We will restore it. I created a fake account.
00:13:39We will identify it. I used someone else's SIM card.
00:13:43We will find out. I received payment in cryptocurrency. We will de-anonymize.
00:13:46The Sverdlovsk FSB department explains in memes. Deleted correspondence,
00:13:50turned on VPN, bought someone else's SIM card, it won't help. There
00:13:54are no anonymous people on the Internet. Terrorist
00:15:25attacks on four military airfields, when drones taking off from
00:15:28trucks hit strategic Russian bombers,
00:15:32oil refineries that the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit with almost 200
00:15:35successful strikes, also remained without preventive protection. The FSB's failures
00:15:39also include the terrorist attack in Dagestan, when during
00:15:43the attack on synagogues, churches and police posts,
00:15:4622 people were killed, and of course, the terrorist attack in Crocus
00:15:49with 145 dead. It later became known that the US warned
00:15:53of the impending attack 2
00:15:55weeks in advance, but this, of course,
00:15:58means that our
00:16:01relevant law enforcement, special
00:16:04services miss these.
00:16:11What can be said here, we just need to improve this work and not
00:16:15allow such grave failures for us,
00:16:18that's all. Failures have accumulated into a whole list, they missed the bomb
00:16:22under Daria Dugina's car, they missed the figurine with
00:16:25explosives, which was handed to pro-war blogger Vladlen
00:16:28Tatarsky in a St. Petersburg cafe with a full house,
00:16:32they missed the truck that exploded right on the Crimean bridge,
00:16:35to be fair, the FSB also failed to cope with terrorist attacks
00:16:39before the war. Nord-Ost, Beslan, blown up planes, explosions in
00:16:42the Moscow metro in Domodedovo, all according to
00:16:45the international terrorism database Global Terrorism
00:16:48Database. From 2000 to 2001, Russia had
00:16:52almost 2,000 terrorist attacks and almost 3,500
00:16:55dead. It was not customary to punish the FSB for this, it was customary
00:16:59to reward, the general who led the headquarters during Nord-Ost,
00:17:03where 130 hostages died, received
00:17:06a hero star after 3 months. Russia: this
00:17:09is a service that primarily deals with
00:17:12the security of the country and the state.
00:17:15In Russia, firstly, the FSB, I even prefer to
00:17:19call it the KGB, so as not to get confused in all these letters,
00:17:22it protects primarily itself, protects the regime,
00:17:26and I want to note that
00:17:29it was structured this way from the moment
00:17:32of 1918, in the Cheka documents it is written exactly
00:17:36like that. That it is a service that
00:17:40protects primarily the regime from its
00:17:43ideological opponents, and so it has been throughout the years, if
00:17:47you look at the special files of the KGB, the special files of
00:17:50the Politburo of the Central Committee, then everywhere it says
00:17:53that we must prevent
00:17:56the penetration of dangerous ideology into the Soviet Union, we
00:18:00must protect against the penetration of this ideology and so
00:18:03on. The efforts of special services are primarily aimed at
00:18:06preventing such offenses, in order not
00:18:09to allow legal opposition activities to develop into
00:18:13a radical component. Russia already has TikTok troops.
00:18:16This is Kadyrov's army, which instead of fighting, filmed
00:18:20videos with shooting at empty houses. Now Russia has
00:18:23a couch special service that catches
00:18:26Russians on the internet instead of terrorists. And here it has only victories. Last
00:18:30year, more than 2,000 people were convicted
00:18:34on terrorism charges, twice as many as the year before, almost. journalist Yuri
00:18:46Dud, creator of Telegram Pavel Durov, such
00:18:50a special service now has different expenses, uniforms will be issued
00:18:53less often and not to everyone. We have Evgeny
00:18:57Savostyanov on the line, head of state security agencies for
00:19:00Moscow and the Moscow region in
00:19:38So, its formation took place almost entirely under
00:19:41Putin, when he was appointed in
00:19:451998
00:19:47as director of the FSB, he began
00:19:51slowly, and even not so slowly, to form this
00:19:54St. Petersburg management team of the FSB. But
00:19:58if we take the initial period, of course, it was
00:20:02simply the dismemberment of the KGB, one could even say to
00:20:05some extent the liquidation of the KGB.
00:20:37slowly the power component began to grow,
00:20:40now we see the transition, well, virtually to the
00:20:44thirties, the country is closing down, which means that
00:20:47the tasks of counterintelligence are shrinking.
00:21:50they didn't chase after Zhirinovsky's supporters, they didn't chase after them, meaning they
00:21:53had the opportunity to conduct their political work completely freely,
00:21:57now, yes, now, of course, it's not just about protecting the system, right, not
00:22:01just about protecting the regime, it's about protecting the one-man rule
00:22:04of one person, that is, everything is geared towards
00:22:07ensuring Putin's dream of living
00:22:11forever, ruling forever, restoring
00:22:14empires, dictating his will
00:22:18to the world. Can we say that this
00:22:22is the nature of the special service under
00:22:24Bortnikov?
00:22:26Yes, of course, yes, this is precisely the
00:22:30transformation of the FSB's
00:22:34work in those years, well, not only under
00:22:37Bortnikov, it also began under Patrushev, and under Putin himself,
00:22:41as I just said, through personnel appointments,
00:22:45well, in general, everything is geared towards first strengthening the power of the St. Petersburg
00:22:48team, then individual.
00:22:52What do you know about the people being tipped to replace
00:22:56Bortnikov? FSB General and head of Department
00:22:59K-4 of the economic security service of the FSB,
00:23:02Ivan Tkachev, First Deputy Director of the FSB
00:23:06Sergei Korolev, and Alexei Sidov, head of the Second
00:23:09Service. If Tkachev is Sechin's man, can we say that
00:23:13the FSB is totally corrupt, and repression is only
00:23:16a consequence of this, and not an end in itself?
00:23:21No, repression is a consequence of exactly what we were talking about, repression
00:23:24is a consequence of the fact that the FSB's task is to ensure
00:23:28Putin's unified rule, as
00:23:31for the people you listed, I don't know any of them
00:23:34personally, we never worked or
00:23:38communicated with them, I can only say about Sidov
00:23:41that, apparently, I had a most decisive
00:23:50he worked as head of the department for
00:23:53combating smuggling and corruption, apparently he worked
00:23:57in the police direction, that is, in the last
00:24:00years of the CPSU's life, even the Soviet Union, the KGB
00:24:04was tasked with combating organized crime in
00:24:08particular, meaning to strengthen positions
00:24:11among corrupt police officers, but this was
00:24:14the result of the struggle between Andropov and Shchelkov,
00:24:17even then, when the police.
00:25:10that the head of the Moscow department, one of the deputy
00:25:13chairmen, all the leadership came
00:25:16to consult there, and Podelyakin and Polsky and Orlov.
00:25:20and Almazov come and say: "What should we do, Evgeny
00:25:23Vadimovich, they will all drive us away now." I sat,
00:25:27thought, and said, "Look, the country is entering a new regime, there
00:25:30is a completely new economy emerging, new tax issues,
00:25:34let's build something like the financial guard in Italy,
00:25:37a national system of tax police." They liked this
00:25:40terrible idea, they left, pushed
00:25:43the idea, and that's how the tax police appeared, where Sidov
00:25:47then moved to work, and later, by the way, headed
00:25:50the Moscow tax police department, replacing my
00:25:53former employee Dobrushkin, so
00:25:56I really had a very serious influence on his
00:26:00fate, let's continue then.
00:26:10topic of Sidov, he now heads the Second Service of the FSB, so what do they do, only internal affairs or provocations and sabotages in Europe are also their work? Well, it seems
00:26:13they have enough of this work too, but
00:26:17of course, it's mainly internal
00:26:19tasks,
00:26:22they are simply functionally geared towards working within
00:26:26the country, sometimes they are allowed to venture
00:26:29outside, but in principle, those who...
00:27:32their task was to cultivate Western elites, well, not only
00:27:36Western African, Latin American,
00:27:39Asian, through whom subsequently the influence of the Soviet Union
00:27:42abroad would be exercised, and the GRU
00:27:45is still purely a military direction,
00:27:48uncovering military secrets,
00:27:51conducting active operations along the military
00:27:55line, I think the same remains
00:27:59for the current distribution.
00:28:02Therefore, the FSB apparently deals with political
00:28:06influence, political information, well,
00:28:09mainly influence, now I think that uncovering secrets is becoming
00:28:13less and less, so
00:28:16the GRU, of course, the GRU and SVR, they
00:28:19are engaged in active work abroad, and Evgeny,
00:28:23do you allow that Putin can appoint a civilian,
00:28:27not a military man, to the post of FSB director, well, I rather
00:28:31allow that... someone from the FSO or
00:28:34SBP, such experience has already existed, I recall,
00:28:38precisely in 1994, when they
00:28:41removed me, as head of the Moscow
00:28:45department, then it was the deputy director
00:28:48of the FSK, and over time
00:28:52Barsukov headed
00:28:54the FSB, already becoming
00:28:56the FSB in 1995, that is, the
00:28:59Kremlin clan then decided
00:29:03to strengthen control over the special services in a purely personal
00:29:07way, so I rather allow that the director
00:29:10may be one of the employees of the presidential security
00:29:14service, you mean, including one of
00:29:17the bodyguards, well, they are all bodyguards, the presidential
00:29:20security service is bodyguards, in essence, yes,
00:29:24they have different directions of bodyguarding,
00:29:28from technical measures, analysis
00:29:30of handwriting to physical protection, well, someone from those
00:29:34whom Putin particularly trusts, in whom he sees the beginnings
00:29:37of organizational abilities, or
00:29:39the FSO, that's a larger circle of people, there
00:29:43are more personnel,
00:29:46although I think that if he does go down this
00:29:49path, the decision will be made at the SBP level, and a civilian, well,
00:29:53what civilian, and why a civilian, Putin does not
00:29:56like such decisive changes, why would he
00:30:00need that. What might he be dissatisfied with? Yes,
00:30:03the first service, the counterintelligence service and
00:30:06military counterintelligence, well
00:30:09here - along the line of counterintelligence, I say that
00:30:12the tasks are narrowing, the circle of foreigners is getting smaller,
00:30:15so there is less work left, along the line of military
00:30:19counterintelligence, the most important thing is ensured, already
00:30:23the fifth, the fifth year is going on,
00:30:26how - the military on the front line submissively go to
00:30:30their death, not trying to evade what they are ordered,
00:30:34this absolute obedience of the armed forces
00:30:37to orders, this is what
00:30:40military counterintelligence can record as an asset, as a liability,
00:30:44it can allow itself to record the failure
00:30:48to prevent a number of strikes that the Ukrainian special services inflict
00:30:51on the command staff of the Russian armed forces, but still,
00:30:54the fact that the army, unlike, say, some
00:30:57Wagner, goes to its death and...