Intelligence actors, activities, and culture play an increasingly important role in Russian politics and society. This must be reflected in how Russia’s foreign and security policy is viewed. However, Russia is not a ‘KGB state’.
The last decade and a half, the chekists (current and former employees of the security services) have strengthened their grip on power at the expense of the oligarchs and the technocrats, the two other main groups of the wider Russian elite. Intelligence methods, such as provocations, covert information gathering, information operations, and even assassinations, are parts of everyday political life. The belief in hidden motives, enemy plots, and the encirclement of Russia are at the heart of mainstream public debate. Former and current intelligence officials have increasingly privileged access to President Putin. The autocrat is said to start his workday reading intelligence briefings, with the authors competing to please him with analyses that suit (and exacerbate) his rather paranoid worldview. When comparatively more moderate voices get the president’s ear, their assessments are largely brushed off.
Among the intelligence and security agencies, the FSB is the biggest and undoubtedly the most influential one. It seems clear that, for instance, the decision to go to full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in part was based on faulty or even fabricated intelligence provided by the FSB, indicating that Ukrainian resistance would be miniscule. The service also failed their mission to prepare the ground properly for regime change through provocations, covert action, and the development of effective collaborator networks. Nevertheless, the consequences for the individuals carrying the formal responsibility for these fiascoes have been minimal. Colonel General Sergei Beseda, Director of the FSB’s Fifth Service, was reputedly under arrest for a while. However, he kept his post for two more years, before becoming adviser to FSB Director Aleksandr Bortnikov. In March 2025, Beseda was even one of the leaders of the negotiation team in Riyadh.
The ‘special military operation’, now a strange euphemism for all-out war, was initially a rather accurate term. At first, the ‘full-scale invasion’, as it is known in the West, was not conducted according to current military doctrine, and was not really full-scale, relying instead to a great extent on lightly armed special forces, provocation, diversionary tactics, and surprise. This reflected the chekist belief in ‘special operations’ as the tool to solve virtually any problem. Operational secrecy was taken to the extreme, to the extent that military commanders were kept in the dark until the last moment, with US and UK intelligence seemingly better informed than the ones who soon were to lead the operation on the ground. As the ‘special operation’ turned into a war of attrition, failures were largely blamed on the military leadership, with several generals, as well as Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu and his deputy Timur Ivanov, being fired.
The present salience of intelligence actors, activities, and culture in Russian politics has led some observers to call Russia a ‘KGB state’. The president spent formative years in the KGB, several of his former colleagues have gained prominent positions, and in the KGB’s successor agencies there is considerable continuity as regards personnel, methods, and culture. Nevertheless, the ‘KGB state’ label is misleading and anachronistic. Most obviously, Russian politics and society have changed fundamentally since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, postcommunist intelligence and security services had to find their place in a globalizing world and a predatory capitalist economy, forced to fight with oligarchs and organized criminal networks for power and influence. After initial stupefaction, the chekists found themselves exceedingly well equipped for this struggle, as they put to use the full spectrum of resources at their disposal. They were also freed of ideological constraints and political oversight. At the same time, they had to adapt to the new circumstances, forming a working relationship with, rather than all-out war against, organized crime and private business. Former intelligence officers entered organized crime and the intelligence services could use criminal methods, themselves or by proxy. The boundaries between politics, intelligence, and organized crime as regards actors, activities, and culture were blurred.
The Russian regime, personified by Putin, for all practical purposes represents a hybrid of these elements. Western decisionmakers seeking to counter, negotiate with, or otherwise engage the Russian regime should keep this in mind.
Jardar Østbø
Professor, Head of Programme for Russian Defence and Security Policy
Institute for Defence Studies, Norwegian Defence University College
Oslo
Norway
