|
Silovik
In the Russian political lexicon, a ''silovik'' ( rus, силовик, p=sʲɪlɐˈvʲik; plural: ''siloviki'', rus, силовики, p=sʲɪləvʲɪˈkʲi) is a person who works for any state organisation that is authorised to use force against citizens or others. Examples include the Russian Armed Forces, the Russian national police, Russian national drug control (GUKON), Russian immigration control (GUVM), the Ministry of Justice, the Federal Security Service (FSB), former KGB personnel, Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and the Federal Protective Service (FSO). This word is also used for a politician who came into politics from these organisations. ''Siloviki'' is also used as a collective noun to designate all troops and officers of all law enforcement agencies of post-Soviet countries, not necessarily high-ranking ones. Etymology The term ''siloviki'' ('siloviks') is literally translated as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Bortnikov
Alexander Vasilyevich Bortnikov (; born 15 November 1951) is a Russian intelligence officer who has served as the Director of the Federal Security Service, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) since 2008. He is one of the most powerful members of the ''silovik'' faction of president Vladimir Putin's inner circle. A Hero of the Russian Federation since 2019, he also holds the rank of Army general (Russia), General of the Army, the second highest grade in use in the Russian military. According to some experts, it is likely Bortnikov played a key role in Putin's decision to Russian invasion of Ukraine, invade Ukraine in 2022. Early life and career Bortnikov was born in Perm, Russia, Molotov, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Perm, Russia) in 1951. In 1966, he joined Komsomol, the Communist Party's youth wing. He graduated from the Petersburg State Transport University, Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers in 1973, joining th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Patrushev
Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev (; born 11 July 1951) is a Russian politician, security officer and former intelligence officer who served as the secretary of the Security Council of Russia from 2008 to 2024. He previously served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008. Belonging to the ''siloviki'' faction of president Vladimir Putin's inner circle, Patrushev is believed to be one of the closest advisors to Putin and a leading figure behind Russia's national security affairs. Patrushev has spoken favorably of the rise of KGB stalwarts to the highest echelons of power of Russia, referring to them as the "new nobility." He played a key role in the decisions to seize and then annex Crimea in 2014 and to invade Ukraine in 2022. Early life and education Born on 11 July 1951 in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia), Patrushev is the son of a Soviet Navy officer who was also a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Patru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Sechin
Igor Ivanovich Sechin (; born 7 September 1960) is a Russian entrepreneur and a government official, considered a close ally and "de facto deputy" of Vladimir Putin. Sechin has been a confidant of Russian leader Vladimir Putin since the early 1990s. Sechin was chief of staff to Putin when he was the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in 1994. When Putin became President in 2000, Sechin became his deputy chief of staff, overseeing security services and energy issues in Russia. Putin appointed Sechin as chairman of Rosneft, the Russian state oil company in 2004. He was as Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in Vladimir Putin's cabinet from 2008 to 2012. He is currently the chief executive officer, president and chairman of the management board of Rosneft. Sechin is often described as one of Putin's most conservative counselors and the leader of the Kremlin's ''Siloviki'' faction, a lobby gathering former security services agents. He has been sanctioned by some foreign governments follow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chekism
Chekism () is a term that relates to the situation in the Soviet Union where the secret police strongly controlled all spheres of society. It is also used to point out similar circumstances in post-Soviet Counterintelligence state, intelligence states such as modern Russia. The term can refer to the system of rule itself, and to the underlying ideology that promotes and popularizes political police violence and arbitrariness against real and imagined enemies of the state. The name is derived from Cheka, the colloquial name of the first in the succession of Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police agencies. Employees of Soviet and Russian state security organs have been called Chekists. Soviet Union Chekism is described as a product of the set of beliefs, practices, and assumptions in the security police introduced and developed for more than a decade by Felix Dzerzhinsky. The systems he had put in place led to the strengthening of the concept that legiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Shoigu
Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu; , . (born 21 May 1955) is a Russian politician and military officer who has served as secretary of the Security Council since 2024. He served as Minister of Defence of Russia from 2012 to 2024. Shoigu has served as the chairman of the Council of Ministers of Defense of the Commonwealth of Independent States since 2012. Shoigu was the Minister of Emergency Situations from 1991 to 2012. He briefly served as the governor of Moscow Oblast in 2012. A close confidant and ally of Vladimir Putin, Shoigu belongs to the '' siloviki'' of Putin's inner circle. He was entrusted with the task of supervising the invasion of Ukraine since 2022. A feud between Shoigu and Yevgeny Prigozhin led to a mutiny by the Wagner Group in June 2023. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Shoigu on charges of alleged war crimes during the invasion of Ukraine. In May 2024, Putin replaced Shoigu with Andrey Belousov as defense minister, appointin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Oligarchs
Russian oligarchs () are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property. The Russian oligarchs emerged as business entrepreneurs under Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary, 1985–1991) using various loopholes during economic liberalization under Gorbachev's perestroika. Boris Berezovsky, a mathematician and former researcher, became the first well-known Russian business oligarch. Oligarchs became increasingly influential in Russian politics during Boris Yeltsin's presidency (1991–1999), a period often dubbed as ''the wild nineties''; they helped finance his re-election in 1996. Well-connected oligarchs like Roman Abramovich, Michail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterintelligence State
A counterintelligence state (sometimes also called intelligence state, securocracy or spookocracy) is a state where the state security service penetrates and permeates all societal institutions, including the military.Michael Waller ''Secret Empire: The KGB in Russia Today.'', Westview Press. Boulder, CO., 1994., , pages 13–15. The term has been applied by historians and political commentators to the former Soviet Union, the former German Democratic Republic, Cuba after the 1959 revolution, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and post-Soviet Russia under Vladimir Putin, especially since 2012. According to one definition, "The counterintelligence state is characterized by the presence of a large, elite force acting as a watchdog of a security defined as broadly that the state must maintain an enormous vigilance and enforcement apparatus... This apparatus is not accountable to the public and enjoys immense police powers... Whether the civil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergey Naryshkin
Sergey Yevgenyevich Naryshkin ( rus, Серге́й Евге́ньевич Нары́шкин, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej jɪˈvɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ nɐˈrɨʂkʲɪn; born 27 October 1954) is a Russian politician who has served as the Director of SVR, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia), Foreign Intelligence Service since 2016. Previously, he was Chairman of the State Duma (2011–2016) and Kremlin Chief of Staff (2008–2012); he was also chairman of the Historical Truth Commission from May 2009 until it was dissolved in February 2012. Naryshkin has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation. Early life and education Sergei Yevgenyevich Naryshkin was born in Leningrad and graduated from Baltic State Technical University, Leningrad Institute of Mechanics with a degree in engineering in 1978, and in 1978 was the first secretary of its Komsomol which was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party's y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viktor Ivanov
Viktor Petrovich Ivanov (, born May 12, 1950) is a Russian politician and businessman, former KGB officer, who served in the KGB Directorate of Leningrad and its successors in 1977–1994. He was the director of The Federal Narcotics Service of Russia from 2008 until 2016. He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation. Early life Ivanov graduated from Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute of Communications under Konstantin Muravyov in 1971. From 1971 to 1977 as an engineer in the army, he worked at Leningrad's research institute ''Vector'' () which conducted research and development of mobile and portable microwave communications monitoring and direction finding devices using micro-assemblies and microcircuits. Career In 1987–1988 as a KGB officer he took part in the Soviet–Afghan War. In December 1990 together with Boris Gryzlov and Valentin Chuykin he founded the small-scale enterprise Blok engaged in v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Ivanov
Sergei Borisovich Ivanov (, ; born 31 January 1953) is a Russian senior official and politician who has been serving as the Special Presidential Envoy on the Issues of Environmental Activities, Ecology and Transport since 12 August 2016. He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation. Ivanov had held the posts of Minister of Defense of Russia from March 2001 to February 2007, of Deputy Prime Minister from November 2005 to February 2007, and of First Deputy Prime Minister from February 2007 to May 2008. After the election of Dmitry Medvedev as President of Russia, Ivanov was reappointed a Deputy Prime Minister (in office: 2008–2011) in Vladimir Putin's second cabinet. From December 2011 to August 2016, Ivanov worked as the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office. Having served in the Soviet KGB and in its successor, the Federal Security Service, he holds the rank of colonel general. Before joinin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to 1990. He later stood as a Independent politician, political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with Liberalism in Russia, liberalism. Yeltsin was born in Butka, Russia, Butka, Ural Oblast (1923–1934), Ural Oblast. He would grow up in Kazan and Berezniki. He worked in construction after studying at the Ural State Technical University. After joining the Communist Party, he rose through its ranks, and in 1976, he became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee. Yeltsin was initially a supporter of the ''perestroika'' reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He later criticized the reforms as being too moderate and called for a transition to a Multi-party system, multi-party repr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
