POWER & CORRUPTION IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY: THE FSB IS KING

For those of us never involved in corrupt practices, used to operating in what are largely corruption free democracies (though none are completely free of it), endemic corruption, that is so deeply entrenched inside a dictatorship has a sinister life of its own.

On the surface corruption is of course illegal. The question that should be asked is how little does the apparently ‘blind eye’, actually not see. The slide into corrupt practice ie easy enough. You’re a low level general in the Army administration overseeing contracts for everyday goods and services. A supplier offers you a little spare cash if you say, allow the rations packs to say they’re 500g when in fact they’re only 450g and they’re making a larger profit based on the materials savings. The chances of anyone finding out are pretty low and who is going to challenge you?

You move up the chain and become responsible for larger more expensive contracts and make it clear yourself that you know, your wife likes fur coats and she needs ten, but you don’t want the coat, you’d rather have the cash so she can choose herself. All this over vodka and sausages at the contract negotiations dinner, late at night in a smokey room in some private table restaurant in the posh part of Moscow.

Of course the FSB keep tabs on places like this all the time. Putin himself used to run the FSB, he still in some ways, runs the FSB. It is the principle lever of power that keeps him where he is. The FSB note your meeting. They are not in the least bit surprised at your behavior, and they’re not surprised you’ve done something like it before. They’re also not surprised in peacetime, that you were allowed to get away with it, your boss does, the guy who replaced you at your old job does, they do. It’s all part of the system. Except they know about you and you, thinking yourself a little bit above the law, think it’s all perfectly alright. You’re a general in the Army, one of the elite.

However the FSB may be doing nothing about you, they know what you’re doing, and ever single thing you say or do is now of interest to them. They aren’t going to do anything with the information of course. Not yet. Not until The Boss says so. ‘Word has come down we need to make an example of some of these low end generals, maybe one or two near the top, but not the ones The Boss relies on of course, he’ll handle them himself in his own way’.

And so the country is now at war. Things are financially tight. It’s very clear that those with their fingers in the pie still don’t quite see they’re letting the side down. It’s hard to change your ways when you’ve become used to a certain way of living. And there’s an open awareness that corruption has been going on, soldiers, their families and others are openly complaining about it. The Boss needs to do something to make it look like he cares.

The FSB are delighted, they know exactly who to go after and a few more besides who The Boss doesn’t really like but circumstances allow him the luxury of removal. It will send a warning. Loyalty matters, and loyalty means stopping the systemic pilfering of state budgets for personal use because it looks bad, but it’s also impairing effectiveness and that looks worse.

The FSB of course is only really about power and money. They’re not interested in your innocence, guilt or proportionality. The Boss wants you either dead or doing hard labor. They’re there to shake down you, your family, friends of your family, and take their own cut from the elicit gains you made. It’s a bonus month at the Lubijanka.

The above is the headline list of generals held responsible for corruption, with only one of them believed to have had the charges against him entirely fabricated, and that was Ivan Popov. He was involved in the defence of the Surovikin Line during the failed Ukrainian 2023 offensive in the south. A frequent complainer about corruption, poor supplies and low quality materials, he was considered one of the few decent generals, but his open complaints – made on the basis that ‘if only Putin knew he would do something about it’, simply embarrassed the military and Putin, so he now languishes in Siberia for five years in a labor camp.

There’s a whole raft of lower level officers caught up in the net too, but it hasn’t stopped appalling behavior from junior officers. Perhaps the worst corruption of all is the way the military in general abuses their power over the enlisted infantry.

By now you all know about the pay retention schemes, the bribes to get food, even ammo, to get leave, water, medicines, hospital treatment, or even avoid being sent to the front line. This is just a day in the life.

The latest rides on the back of a new army policy. To attempt to stop the rampant transmission of HIV, Hepatitis and Tuberculosis, and also to make sure the older men 50+ are kept together because they’re generally unfit and slow and filled with ailments, these groups are being given badges with insignia declaring their status and kept together, in special units. It has not taken long for officers to realize that they can make money by getting cash from those who don’t want to be placed in those units, and from those they can threaten to put in those units by falsifying papers who wouldn’t be put in them normally. It’s just a wonderful new way to extort soldiers and another new low in the barbarity of life in Russia’s ‘army’.

This is the Russia of today. This is the Russia that thinks itself fit to have an empire and rule people who neither want to be part of it or have anything to do with it.

The FSB is merely a system for Putin and his cronies to enrich themselves further and maintain power. It has nothing to do with crimes or criminality, it’s about extortion and revenge – and keeping Putin in power, through fear and denunciation of his enemies. Loyalty matters more than proficiency, criticism will not be tolerated, excess in wartime should not be seen. Humanity means nothing.

Yet it’s this bunch of misfits that are supposed to bring victory. A victory that this summer has been even more illusive than at any time so far. Despite evidence of numbers of troops amassing for another attempt at Pokrovsk, their quality is likely to be appallingly bad. One cannot help but feel that a turning point has been reached. One overstretch and Russia’s army will fall apart, we don’t know where or when. But we do know with the economic situation as it is and the military and strategic campaigns against Russia not even close to ending, the war has completely changed course. Anyone who sees it dare not say it. Loyalty not capability.

These barbarians – because that is what they have become, will fail. I remain sure of it. Such a dreadful system doesn’t survive long term, it never has, it never will. Ukraine with our support just needs to keep chipping away at this rotten edifice and it will eventually fall down. The sooner the better.

The Analyst

Russia will be beaten. They will not win this war.

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