Ex-spook cult now running most of Russian politics
Russian political life has been usurped by "siloviki" -- ex-spies -- who have apparently seized power from the small network of hyper-rich plutocratic "bankers" who rose to power after the Wall came down. The siloviki are a tight mafiyeh whose methods include high-profile international assassination of defectors (the assassins walk free and then run for high office).
Virtually all key positions in Russian political life -- in government and the economy -- are controlled by the so-called "siloviki," a blanket term to describe the network of former and current state-security officers with personal ties to the Soviet-era KGB and its successor agencies. The unexpected replacement of former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov by former Federal Financial Monitoring Service Director Viktor Zubkov is the latest consolidation of this group's grip on power in Russia. Although Zubkov is not an intelligence officer by background, he has become one de facto during his years at the Financial Monitoring Service, and he has intimate knowledge of where the country's legal and illegal assets are to be found.LinkThe core of the siloviki group, led by former KGB officer and Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Vladimir Putin himself, comprises about 6,000 security-service alumni who entered the corridors of power during Putin's first term. Now, as Putin's second term winds down, their clout is virtually unassailable. Their locus of power is in the presidential administration: deputy chief of staff Igor Sechin cut his teeth in the KGB's First Main Directorate, which oversaw foreign intelligence operations and has since been transformed into the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Fellow deputy chief of staff Viktor Ivanov worked for the KGB's main successor organization, the FSB, which is responsible for counterintelligence operations.
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V. interesting, read it last night, scary. It isn't unique, similar to what has happened here, eg. George H. W. Bush head of CIA to 41st president.
There was a great briefing on this subject a couple of weeks back in the Economist:
http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9682621
All hail Tsar Vladimir the Checkist!
Hmmm, the Economist. The world's greatest contrarian indicator. there is an article in the Exile "The Economist: The World's Sleaziest Magazine" pointing out how this is very old news that the economist has just dredged up , again, to continue their current agenda of demonising Russia. As opposed to their previous editorial policy of praising Russia for it's privatisation of everything.
These guys have been running Russia for a long time now. The only reason this is 'News' is because of the change in the way they have been relating to US.
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Anyone else reminded of "Pattern Recognition"?
Hansellout makes an important point. And I fear that Cory doesn't seem to have anything good to say about Russia, either.
This xenophobic crap gets very, VERY old. And there's plenty of it here, even on boingboing.
Its probably worth noting that, going by the referenced material, this post is pushing little more than conspiracy theory. That is certainly true, if you adhere to the standard of proof required to indict powerful Americans.
"Petrocracy??"
Please! Go pick on Norway or Canada if such creative neologisms really concern you.
Oil blackmail? Yes, routing oil pipelines around neo-NATO territories (which I understand Chechen terrorists badly want to join), and raising their energy prices to post-Soviet fair market value is so teh nasty and duh evil.
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An info-freedom activist apparently forgets that often it is negative information that wants to be free. How one deals with hysteria and lies is at least as important as the ability to run your samizdat un-harassed by lawyers (because legality scarcely signifies at the point where the latter becomes necessary... only truth).