Russian Police Far Less Likely than FSB Officers to Engage in Illegal Forms of Law Enforcement, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 29 – Over the last 18 months, Russian law enforcement agencies have opened some 50 criminal cases against security officers who have provoked crimes or falsified materials in order to improve their record in solving them, according to investigative journalists at the Verstka news agency.

            While this may be only the tip of the iceberg, it is striking, the journalists say, that not one of those charged was an FSB officer even though it is widely known that that agency’s officers are more likely than the police to be involved with victimless crimes or other violations where police often use such tactics (verstka.media/kak-policia-provociruet-i-falsiviciruet-dela).

            The ordinary Russian police officer, according to Sergey Tokaryev, a former official of the Investigative Committee and now a senior partner at the Q&A law firm, “observes the law much more strictly” than do FSB officers. The police know that they can be charged, while the FSB don’t have any fear of that.

            The officers of the Russian secret service are “at the top of the chain of predators, the lions of the steppe. No one is going to encroach on his territory except some other lion.” As a result, he can typically violate the law with impunity – and that makes it all the more likely that he will.

            A second expert with whom Verstka spoke, Kirill Titayev of Cornell University, says there is another and more prosaic explanation. According to him, the FSB simply has “more opportunities” to hide its actions because the case load of this or that officer is likely to be far lower.