Will the KGB be the last man standing in Russia?

Think-tank assessments of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime are coming in fast and furious, in light of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted “march of justice” toward Moscow last weekend. “House of Cards,” some say. “Czar Nicholas II reincarnation,” say others. Others still are even willing to draw comparisons such as, “Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s modern-day Mussolini.”  

There are truths in each of those takes. Putin’s regime is teetering on collapse. He naïvely invited self-comparisons to Russia’s last czar, humiliating himself in the process, by referring to 1917 and the First World War. Nor is Beijing pleased that Putin’s campaign in Abyssinia — sorry, Ukraine — is undermining China’s strategic goals, especially as Xi’s economy is slowing down.

Yet, there is a far deeper truth in play. Putin, live or die, is in effect only the latest KGB reincarnation of a Lernaean Hydra. Cut off his head and, as in Greek mythology, two FSB (the successor security agency to the KGB) aspirants will grow back, one of whom will be tapped to replace him. 

Thus, the more things change in modern Russia, the more the FSB stays historically the same, even if Putin eventually gets toppled. Thus, it is important not to conflate the staying power of the FSB with the three-ring circus presently playing out around Putin — Prigozhin in Ring One, malcontented corrupt oligarchs in Ring Two and perhaps the Russian Defense Ministry and the war in Ukraine in Ring Three.

The circus top could fall on all or one of those rings, even taking out Putin. Even then, the FSB is likely to come out of the collapsed tent as the last man standing. It did so in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It did so again after it welded itself together again after then-President Boris Yeltsin split its KGB forebear into two bureaus — FSB focusing on domestic matters and SVR abroad.

As such, let’s just call the FSB what it really is again: the KGB. 

In 2010, then-President Dmitry Medvedev — acting as a puppet fill-in for Putin, who was blocked by the Russian constitution from running for president again — signed a law restoring “draconian new powers” to the FSB. The Cold War KGB and all of its instruments of repression became hot again in Russia, and Putin aggressively used the FSB to suppress and ostensibly eliminate domestic political opposition. 

Lubyanka Square, the site of the former KGB headquarters, was soon back in all of its fearsome glory. The Kremlin is where power is executed, but Lubyanka Square is where power is made and czars are crowned. 

At the time of Putin’s brief eight-month tenure as the head of the FSB in July 1998, it was noted that “He did little of note in the role.” Nonetheless, as president, Putin melded the FSB into a mixture of a Cold War security intelligence and operations service and mafia-style cartel corruption, learned from his own shady kickback schemes as a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg.

In a twist of situational irony, the very mafia-like corruption Putin inculcated into the FSB is proving to be the Russian military’s Achilles heel in Ukraine. What widespread organized corruption gave to Putin in remuneration and power is now exacting a deadly price on the battlefields of his “special military operation.”

The FSB is a dystopian version of what some Americans refer to as the “deep state.” It is dystopian in the sense that Russia is, as Calder Walton fittingly argued in his article in Time, “effectively a security service with a state attached.” Whereas the FBI and CIA exist to protect the United States, as John Sipher pointed out in another piece for Time, the FSB exists solely “to keep the regime in power.”

Up to now, Walton writes, Putin “has ruled Russia by relying on ‘men of force,’ siloviki, who have KGB or military backgrounds.” The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, is also part of this “security service,” completing the intelligence and security services triumvirate of deep state power and influence that rules Russia. The FSB and SVR are under the control of Putin. But the GRU is subordinate to the Ministry of Defense and therefore lacking the same proximity to Putin.

Prigozhin’s mutiny was representative of the kind of deep state power the FSB exerts inside of Russia. Although Prigozhin’s Wagner Group grew out of the GRU as part of this deep state, he was always careful never to attack the FSB. Shoigu and Gerasimov were in Prigozhin’s eyes fair game, but it was telling that he never attacked Lubyanka Square. It was also telling that it was the FSB, not Putin, who launched an investigation into Prigozhin and subsequently filed treason charges against him.

Putin’s chef had crossed the Rubicon. Facing civil war, execution or a deal resulting in exile, he chose exile under the aegis of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Putin’s collapse was halted in Ring One, at least for now. 

Ring Two is largely a sideshow. Russian oligarchs come and go. Putin sees them as human combination locks to Russia’s riches, whom he can change out at will by imprisoning them, tossing them out of windows or convincing them to leave the country.

Ring Three arguably is the most important circus act that Putin has to pull off. Undoubtedly, a far-wiser man would pull the act altogether. Yet Putin, with his visions of being a modern-day Peter the Great, is still determined to fight his war in Ukraine to a win and to stand by the Ministry of Defense. 

Given how badly weakened Putin is now — and his reported flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg was not a good look, either — the Russian president may now feel he has no choice but to continue prosecuting his war. But if Russian casualties continue to mount in Ukraine and Putin finds himself on the losing end of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s counteroffensive, the one-time KGB agent may find himself ousted from power — or worse.

If so, expect the KGB to be the last man standing in Russia. And get ready for a rinse and repeat in terms of who would next run the Kremlin.

Nothing will change in Moscow for the better until the KGB’s power structure is permanently destroyed. They were here before Putin, and they will be here after he is gone.

Mark Toth is an economist, entrepreneur, and former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis. Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army Colonel and 30-year military intelligence officer, led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014.