National Guard

Ex-FSB chief: Russian National Guard creation important amid NATO’s eastward expansion

The creation of the National Guard in Russia is especially important amid NATO’s expansion closer to Russian borders, lawmaker and former director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Nikolay Kovalyov said on Tuesday.

"The fact that Russia will get a reliable and well-organized reserve of the armed forces in the form of the National Guard primarily for the purposes of territorial defense and not only for that deserves special attention and the highest praise," the lawmaker said at a plenary session of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament. The parliamentarian spoke at the beginning of the plenary session on behalf of the ruling United Russia party.

"This becomes especially topical amid the continued expansion of the North Atlantic alliance towards our borders and its heads openly state the intention to contain Russia. We register such calls ever more frequently," Kovalyov said.

National Guard

Paramilitary: The KGB Army Reborn

The new National Guard is officially a “rapid reaction” force for dealing with terrorism or any other threat to Russia that requires quick and decisive action. It appears that by taking nearly all of the best trained and most effective units from the Interior Ministry the National Guard also weakens a potential foe. Putin, a former KGB officer, also made the National Guard immune to FSB (the post-Soviet KGB) oversight. Another interesting aspect of the National Guard is that the many para-military groups formed by the pro-Putin government of Chechnya are now considered part of the National Guard.

National Guard

Newly-Formed National Guard Cannot Dispel Putin’s Multiple Insecurities

The recent release of the “Panama Papers,” which revealed notorious cases of hidden money flows tied to the global elite, continues to cause a political stir across the world. But in Russia, this scandal was eclipsed by President Vladimir Putin’s sudden reshuffling of the law enforcement structures. The main element of this bureaucratic coup was the creation of the National Guard on the basis of the Interior Troops. And while loose ideas on reorganizing this 200,000 strong “power structure” had been floating around the Kremlin corridors since the mid-1990s, there had been no discussion of the dubious rationale for such a shakeup since 2012, so Putin’s decision came as his trademark surprise (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 7).