Kremlin Doesn’t Fear Its Army But Does Fear Use of Russian Army by Political Emigration and Foreign Powers, Soldatov and Borogan Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 25 – Intelligence agencies focus on threats and thus tend to the paranoid, but Russia’s, which now dominate the Kremlin, are more so than most because of the distorted history they have accepted about the origins of the Russian revolution, according to Andrey Soldatov and Irina Borogan.

            Instead of seeing the coming of the collapse of tsardom and the disintegration of the Russian Empire as the result of war, the two researchers who specialize on Russia’s intelligence services say, Russian spies focus instead on the role of foreign governments and émigré groups like the Bolsheviks (sakharov.world/soldatov-borogan-chego-boyatsya-russkie-speczsluzhby/).

            In the three other empires that died after 1918, Soldatov and Borogan write, governments, peoples and even intelligence agencies recognize the role of World War I as central to what happened and thus are less inclined to focus on conspiracies organized by emigres and foreign countries.

            But in Russia, the situation is different. There the sudden collapse of the empire is viewed as the work of exactly those groups rather than the product of the strains that a prolonged conflict can put on domestic institutions and cause them to be overwhelmed to the point of self-destruction.

            One consequence of this, the two say, is obsessive interest in émigré groups and the actions of foreign governments regarding Russia. But another is insufficient attention to problems arising in various domestic institutions, including first and foremost the Russian military.

            According to Soldatov and Borogan, Russian leaders today, “like their Soviet predecessors are convinced that the Russian army and intelligence services are incapable of carrying out a conspiracy of their own against the regime” because “they lack the initiative” necessary for such a step.

            Their views were confirmed, in their opinion, by “the absolute passivity of the Rostov FSB Directorate and the central apparatus of the FSB during the Prigozhin rebellion.” But the Kremlin is very much alive to the possibility that “people in uniform can be used by external forces – the political emigration, Ukraine and the West.”

            Soldatov and Borogan consider threats arising from such use to be “quite serious and therefore will fight them with all their might.”