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The conflict between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Federal Security Service (FSB) is intensifying. The Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of Ukraine reports that the leadership of the FSB of the Russian Federation is trying to secure the release of Defense Minister Serhiy Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to the Ukrainian GUR, the opposition of the structures is a consequence of the failures of the Russian army at the front in Ukraine and the policies of Vladimir Putin. But experts are sure that the long-simmering conflict was ignited by the death of the founder of the private military company (PMC) “Wagner” Yevhen Prigozhin, reports FREEDOM.
The conflict between the Ministry of Defense of Russia and the FSB has existed for a long time, experts are sure. From time to time, military and power structures, when their interests intersected, fought for spheres of influence.
“This is one of those conflicts on which the search for a balance—Putin’s balance between the towers of the Kremlin—stands. There are towers of the military, there are towers of security forces, there are towers of various financial and industrial groups. These are all figurative concepts, of course. It’s all very interconnected and interflowing, but the whole structure of [Russian President Volodymyr] Putin’s power, in principle, is based on the fact that he brings someone closer to him, and deliberately distances someone from him,” said the candidate of political sciences, head of the AOMS “International Association of Small Communities” Oleksiy Buryachenko.
With the beginning of a full-scale war against Ukraine, the conflict escalated against the background of the first failures of the Russian army at the front. The retreat from the northern regions of Ukraine, the impossibility of capturing Kyiv, and the withdrawal from Kherson brought turmoil to the Kremlin towers. Recent events, in particular, the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, which some security forces blame on Russian President Putin, have become another turning point. In the struggle among themselves, the elites thought about their own security in Putin’s Russia.
“Various forces came to bow to Putin, saying, judge us, we have quarreled here, as you say, so it will be. That is, until recently, such a system worked. Even the law enforcement system worked, albeit in a perverse and sophisticated sense, but it worked. Now, after the liquidation of Yevgeny Prigozhin, I think and am sure that the Russian establishment has thought about the question that a demonstrative execution was carried out – the main opponent was demonstratively executed, they did not even try to try him. The elites understood that everyone who joins a criminal corporation can lose their life for a wrong step, a wrong move, wrong statements,” said Ivan Stupak, military expert of the Ukrainian Future Institute.
For example, after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s so-called march on Moscow, a “witch hunt” began in Russia’s military structures. Fearing a possible rebellion, Putin ordered the security forces to find the traitors.
