"Searching for Scapegoats for War Failure"... Putin Conducts Major Purge in Russia's Top Intelligence Agency

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. / Photo by AP Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly purged a large number of officials from the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia's top intelligence agency, citing the failure of the invasion of Ukraine.

According to the British daily The Times on the 11th (local time), more than 150 senior officials of the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era Committee for State Security (KGB), were dismissed. Western Russian military intelligence experts analyzed that President Putin is looking for scapegoats for the military failure of the Russian army not achieving a swift victory in the war in Ukraine.

The officials dismissed en masse belonged to the Fifth Directorate, which is responsible for overseas espionage. The Fifth Directorate is also the department that President Putin led the establishment of when he was the head of the FSB in 1998.

Earlier, President Putin placed Sergey Beseda (68), head of the FSB Fifth Directorate, which has played a central role in overseas intelligence gathering, under house arrest last month. Officially, he was investigated on charges of embezzlement.

Director Beseda was dismissed after house arrest and transferred to the Lefortovo prison in Moscow. This prison is famous for being used by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in the 1930s during Stalin's "Great Purge" for torture and interrogation.

Andrei Soldatov of the U.S. think tank Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) pointed out to The Times, "Beseda's imprisonment sends a very strong message to other elites in Russia."

He added, "Russian authorities believe Beseda passed information about Russia's invasion strategy in Ukraine to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Putin could have dismissed Beseda or sent him to a remote post in Siberia," and "This move shows that Putin takes information leaks very seriously."

Meanwhile, as the war prolongs, discontent against Putin is reportedly emerging among FSB intelligence agents. An anonymous Russian intelligence analyst affiliated with the FSB sent a letter to Vladimir Osekin, a Russian human rights activist currently in exile.

In an interview with The Times, Osekin analyzed, "The fact that intelligence agents are voicing their opinions and taking risks is a sign that anger toward Putin is growing."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.