Putin makes his own army

[FaxModem1]

Bloomberg

Putin Gets His Own Army
APRIL 10, 2016 8:00 AM EST
By
Leonid Bershidsky
President Vladimir Putin has overhauled Russia's law-enforcement operations to create a domestic army that ultimately would answer to him personally, not to one of the government ministers. It was the clearest demonstration in years of the Russian leader's concern about preserving his power.

Vladimir Putin

On April 5, Putin submitted a bill to the Russian parliament that carved out a National Guard from the Interior Ministry's Interior Troops. The Interior Ministry is essentially the police force; the 170,000-strong Interior Troops are the crack riot police and counterinsurgency units. During Putin's first two presidential terms, they bore the brunt of the fighting in the formerly secessionist region of Chechnya, and they have dispersed many unsanctioned rallies.

In addition to the Interior Troops, all of the ministry's elite units, nicknamed "cosmonauts" by opposition activists for their round helmets and "Star Wars"-like gear, will also be included in Putin's army, with the potential for further expansion. Immediately, the number of National Guard personnel will exceed 15 percent of the Russian armed forces that are supposed to deal with external threats.

This powerful, well-trained force will operate outside the ministry under the command of Viktor Zolotov, a long-time Putin associate, whom the president appointed head of his personal bodyguard immediately after moving into the Kremlin in 2000. Like many Putin friends in government service, he is far wealthier than his official income could ever allow, and he is far more personally loyal to the president than Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Zolotov will report directly to Putin.

As the political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya wrote for the Russian Carnegie Center, regardless of whether the interior minister is a close associate of Putin's, or even one of his judo sparring partners, "at a hypothetically possible moment of high tension, his hand will tremble when orders must be followed. Zolotov enjoys maximum protection from such hesitation. Putin -- and Zolotov as an extension of Putin -- will have no more intermediaries."

In the same way, the National Guard's loyalty is more certain than that of the Defense Ministry, run by the popular -- and, reportedly, increasingly independent -- Sergei Shoigu.

The new National Guard has its own intelligence service and thus investigative powers. It also has been granted authority to issue firearm licenses to private individuals and security firms -- almost 10 million people, from hunters to elite bodyguards. The National Guard also has been granted the right to fire without warning "in special cases" and to not introduce themselves when making an arrest.

The Interior Ministry will be severely weakened by the reform. Whenever it needs muscle, it will have to ask Zolotov. As a consolation prize, Kolokoltsev, not a member of Putin's inner circle, gets the 27,000 employees of the Federal Service for the Control of Narcotics and most of the former Federal Migration Service, which issues passports. The ministry is handed all the routine police work, and it loses its status as the Kremlin's most powerful protector.

Putin last reshuffled the "power ministries" in 2003, mostly to bring them closer in line with the Soviet institutions of his youth. The new moves appear to be more significant, both because Russia's ruler is personally taking control of an army and because of the timing. Parliamentary elections will be held in September -- though it won't be a significant event because the resulting legislature will likely rubber-stamp Kremlin decisions just as the current one has, but if the vote is as blatantly rigged as it was in 2011, protests could break out again. Although pollsters still report high levels of support for Putin after the military actions in Ukraine and Syria, Russians also are under stress because of a continuing economic slump. According to the Russian Central Bank, the country's economic output shrank about 1 percent in the first quarter of 2016, compared with a year earlier.

Putin, who appears to believe that the U.S. and its Western allies are out not just to destabilize his regime but to bring about Russia's break-up, is taking no chances. He clearly is timing the reorganization to be completed well ahead of the election. By the time of the presidential election in 2018, the National Guard will have ironed out its kinks. It will have all the powers and functions necessary to counteract a putative Western plot and do away with any overly loud or violent dissent.

Once again, instead of opening up and liberalizing, the embattled Putin regime is closing in on itself, and the man sitting on top of it is taking on more and more direct powers. The National Guard is a manifestation of Putin's mistrust of Russia's remaining institutions: He feels more confident surrounded by old friends and in control of a large fighting force.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

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Well, looks like Russia is embracing authoritarianism more and more with each new day.

[K. A. Pital]

Or rather, Putin makes the internal forces and a fair share of police members to answer personally to him.

This is a glorified security service personally serving the Czar.

And it won't help as the example of Fedayeen Saddam proves.

[FaxModem1]

It'll help with his political enemies, as that seems what it's being made for.

[K. A. Pital]

His political enemies are either irrelevant and deemed harmless idiots, or imprisoned or dead. I doubt he really needs the PMC-like structure to deal with challengers, he seemed to be doing just fine before and the number of political enemies isn't exactly rising...

[Imperial Overlord]

His political enemies are either irrelevant and deemed harmless idiots, or imprisoned or dead. I doubt he really needs the PMC-like structure to deal with challengers, he seemed to be doing just fine before and the number of political enemies isn't exactly rising...

Sure, but this force isn't worth much against a foreign military so what else could he want it for? It's not exactly unknown for guys like Putin to become paranoid or disconnected from reality.

[Purple]

He probably just wants an elite force he can use to clean up situations like that in recent years without raising too much attention. All those supposed Russian soldiers on supposed holidays in the Ukraine would have been unnoticed if they had come from a force such as this.

[Ziggy Stardust]

It also may be that Putin doesn't intend to have these forces operate any differently on a day-to-day basis than they do now, but for some reason decided that he didn't trust the current command structure, and simply decided to implement one he prefers.

[Esquire]

Without any particular research, that makes the most sense to me - it's not like the regular police or Army would refuse Presidential commands as current, unless I'm missing something.

[Pelranius]

The more command structures there are, they more difficult it is for any group of would be plotters to mount a coherent challenge with military force.

IIRC, the Soviets had Internal Minstry, KGB and Red Army units in Moscow for that reason; the launch a coup, one would have to suborn all three forces (or at least substantial portions of each one).

[Lord Revan]

If you assume you're constantly at risk of getting dethroned if one of your minions gets the military might to do so it does make sense to split that command structure so it's hard(er) for anyone but you to assert control over all of those those forces.

though he isn't that old yet, I wonder if Putin is trying to make sure there's no clear line of succession when he dies, by having troops that could potentially bar any successor that wasn't approved by Putin himself, make sure that Russia doesn't outlive him.

[Simon_Jester]

Putin has never struck me as being that egomaniacal. He wants to run Russia, but if he genuinely wanted to run the country into the ground to fuel his own sense of grandeur, he'd have done more along those lines already.

We're not talking about a guy who builds stuff like this, here.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Putin has never struck me as being that egomaniacal. He wants to run Russia, but if he genuinely wanted to run the country into the ground to fuel his own sense of grandeur, he'd have done more along those lines already.

We're not talking about a guy who builds stuff like this, here.

And, now I can say I've seen the world's only three-legged giant dildo.

[Lord Revan]

Putin has never struck me as being that egomaniacal. He wants to run Russia, but if he genuinely wanted to run the country into the ground to fuel his own sense of grandeur, he'd have done more along those lines already.

We're not talking about a guy who builds stuff like this, here.

It could work to discourage assasinations coming from within his own supporters too, after all most of those wouldn't want to see Russia ran to the ground so they have personal intrest at keeping Putin healthy until he can choose a successor.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

His political enemies are either irrelevant and deemed harmless idiots, or imprisoned or dead. I doubt he really needs the PMC-like structure to deal with challengers, he seemed to be doing just fine before and the number of political enemies isn't exactly rising...

Sure, but this force isn't worth much against a foreign military so what else could he want it for? It's not exactly unknown for guys like Putin to become paranoid or disconnected from reality.

If you read, the force in question is carved out from the existing Interior Ministry forces. They aren't exactly appearing out of nowhere. The Interior Ministry and others have already been dealing with terrorist threats and Islamic militants for years as it is. So they aren't exactly sitting around twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing.

To wit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBAKCdLKzXI
*Warning, dead bodies in video.

[Imperial Overlord]

No one is saying they're doing nothing. We're speculating on why Putin wants to mess with their chain of command so they're directly answering to him now.