Investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, a renowned expert on the Russian secret services who is based in London and wanted in his homeland, warns that since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, the Federal Security Service (FSB) has undergone a dramatic expansion of its authority. Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is relying increasingly on this apparatus to keep society under control, obtain information from the front and ensure the stability of his rule.
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Soldatov, author of the book “The New Nobility,” argues that the conflict has given the FSB a mandate extending far beyond the traditional functions of espionage and counterintelligence. He describes its influence as all-encompassing, penetrating the prison system, academia, the private business sector, the digital sphere and the military industry.
“Since 2022, the growth of the FSB’s power has been drastic, and today this fact is completely blatant,” Soldatov says. He notes that the “Second Service,” theoretically responsible for protecting the constitutional order and combating terrorism, has been particularly empowered, while the counterintelligence branch is also becoming more aggressive by the day. This has fueled a new wave of espionage cases that has turned paranoia into a nationwide phenomenon. According to him, fears are no longer focused solely on Western services such as the CIA or MI6, but also on allies such as China, with which Moscow officially maintains a “no-limits friendship.”
One troubling sign of this was the leak of an internal document portraying China as an enemy, despite the warm rhetoric between Putin and Xi Jinping. Soldatov adds that the services now actively discourage any form of communication with foreigners. The most tangible expansion of their power can be seen in the military sphere, where the FSB’s counterintelligence branch now not only oversees the armed forces but also monitors private contracts for the production of equipment and services, including technology companies developing drone software.
This marks a departure from the Soviet era, when the military-industrial complex was entirely state-owned. “Military counterintelligence now believes it has every right to spy on those companies as well,” the journalist explains, stressing that many of these operations remain secret. Another dimension is the creation of a parallel network of prisons under FSB control, a system independent of the traditional prison administration that has been under development since last year. These facilities are used not only to hold Ukrainian prisoners of war, but also as fertile ground for intelligence gathering and recruitment.
Soldatov compares this tactic to Stalin’s methods during World War II, adding that pressure is often also exerted on prisoners’ family members in Ukraine. The FSB’s operational importance is also evident in acts of sabotage in Europe, where the perpetrators are often recruited from among Moldovans, Ukrainians or Belarusians specifically to avoid the easy identification of ethnically Russian agents. This makes the FSB an indispensable instrument of the regime.
Asked whether Putin has become a “hostage” of the services, Soldatov sees the situation as more nuanced. He identifies a fundamental difference between the founding generation, such as Nikolai Patrushev, who lived through the catastrophe of the 1990s and remembers the 1980s, and the new bureaucracy that has grown up entirely under Putin. This new generation has fewer political ambitions to challenge the leader, but the president’s dependence is increasing because the services have been burdened with critical roles that shape the course of the war.
However, the main danger lies in Putin’s isolation from reality. “Even if he thinks everyone is afraid and would not conspire against him, he is unable to understand for himself what is happening in the country,” Soldatov observes. It becomes impossible to verify reports when even regional governors fear the secret service, in the absence of an alternative mechanism such as the Communist Party once provided. A powerful symbol of this growing authority is the decision to restore the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky to Lubyanka Square and to name the FSB academy after the founder of the Cheka secret police.
Soldatov stresses that a direct comparison with the KGB of the 1980s is misguided. Today, security officials no longer harbor illusions about the future and view the end of the conflict as an existential catastrophe. Traumatized by the collapse of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, they believe the state is extraordinarily fragile and that only a brutal security apparatus can prevent another revolution. In their view, this conviction justifies any form of repression, killing or poisoning. “If they stop the war, for them it is the end,” he says.
Moreover, the shared experience of brutality in Ukraine has created a new cohesion among officers that did not exist in the 1980s, making them more aggressive and more closely connected to one another. Looking ahead, Soldatov warns that any potential weakening of Putin due to old age would not necessarily bring about a new perestroika. Today, in the absence of a structure such as the Communist Party, which once restrained the KGB, and with an FSB immersed in the conflict and tied to the regime’s survival, the growing power of the secret services simultaneously increases the risk that the president will remain blind to the truth about his own country.
