Thursday, November 06, 2003
PUTIN CENTRALIZES ALL RUSSIAN MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE SERVICES UNDER ONE TOP AIDE
In a stunning consolidation of personal power Russian President Vladmir Putin named the Chief of Staff of Russia's Armed Forces the head of all the component intelligence services that spun off from the KGB. giving the Putin more direct control over the military-security apparatus of any leader since Joseph Stalin. This would place Chief of Staff Army General Anatoly Kvashnin as Putin's right-hand man and likeliest successor.
This bureaucratic move is also a considerable rebuke to the hierarchy of the Russian security services who have never been placed in such a humiliating position of being answerable to an Army general, even after Stalin's death when Beria was secretly executed and the all-powerful NKVD ministry demoted to a mere " state committee " ( KGB).
¶ 6:04 PM
In a stunning consolidation of personal power Russian President Vladmir Putin named the Chief of Staff of Russia's Armed Forces the head of all the component intelligence services that spun off from the KGB. giving the Putin more direct control over the military-security apparatus of any leader since Joseph Stalin. This would place Chief of Staff Army General Anatoly Kvashnin as Putin's right-hand man and likeliest successor.
This bureaucratic move is also a considerable rebuke to the hierarchy of the Russian security services who have never been placed in such a humiliating position of being answerable to an Army general, even after Stalin's death when Beria was secretly executed and the all-powerful NKVD ministry demoted to a mere " state committee " ( KGB).
¶ 6:04 PM
