Dr. Alexandr Nemets
Sunday, Dec. 30, 2001

The author began compiling this article only one day after a new airline terrorist attempt: An American Airlines aircraft narrowly avoided an attack by a person with a brand new British passport.

What was UK Prime Minister Tony Blair doing at that moment? He was holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on upgrading UK-Russian relations, particularly on closer cooperation between the FSB (Russia's Federal Security Service, one of the two KGB successor services, along with the SVR, or Foreign Intelligence Service) and British special services.

Mr. Blair probably didn't read an article published by the author on NewsMax Dec. 20, which directly pointed to the Kremlin and Russian intelligence community as major participants in preparations for the "9-11 attacks."

1. What's Going On In and Around the Kremlin?

Now, about the Russian intelligence community and its core, the FSB/KGB. During most of December 2001, major Russian papers — or at least those not entirely controlled by the Kremlin (Nezavisimaya gazeta, Sovershenno sekretno, Versiya, etc.) — published several articles about vicious infighting at the top level of the Russian power pyramid.

Most of these reports characterize this struggle as an offensive by "Putin's St. Petersburg team" against the remnants of the "Family [i.e., former President Boris Yeltsin's] team" in the Kremlin and the Russian government.

One or two of the most insightful among these reports, however, came to the correct conclusion that we are observing the process of the FSB/KGB finally taking power in Russia.

Let's look at the group of "almighty ghosts" (to use the term in Nezavisimaya gazeta) closely surrounding Putin — the very group that is now effectively running Russia:

1. Nikolai Patrushev, FSB director: 50, 27-year KGB/FSB veteran who has spent most of his life and career in Leningrad/St. Petersburg. Patrushev, who is very closely tied to Putin, became FSB Director in August 1999, immediately upon Putin's promotion from FSB Director to Prime Minister of Russia.

2. Yuriy Zaostrovtsev, FSB Deputy Director: 45, a 20-year KGB/FSB veteran (with some hiatuses) who has spent most of his career in Leningrad/St. Petersburg. Zaostrovtsev, very closely tied to Putin and Patrushev, is concurrently chief of the FSB's Economic Counter-Intelligence Department and was in charge of a successful operation against former oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky and his media-holding MOST. Zaostrovtsev also has close ties to the "Siberian Aluminum" industrial-financial group.

   According to a private investigation by Nezavisimaya gazeta, Zaostrovtsev receives a monthly income of several hundred thousand dollars from the suburban-Moscow-based "Solntsevo" organized crime group — possibly the most influential such group in Russia — as well as from several Solntsevo-controlled companies that import furniture and other consumer goods.

   Most important, Zaostrovtsev is said to be in "supreme charge" of exports of Russian arms and arms-related technologies.

3. Igor Sechin, Putin's chief secretary and deputy chief of the Kremlin administration: 41, a 15-year KGB/FSB veteran (with some hiatuses) extremely closely tied to Putin since 1991. Sechin controls access to President Putin.

4. Viktor Ivanov, deputy chief of the Kremlin administration in charge of personnel (both in the Kremlin and the Russian government): 51, worked in the FSB/KGB system from 1977 to 2000; very closely tied to Putin.

5. Sergei Pugachov, president of Mezhprombank Bank: 38, closely tied to Putin since 1990. "Model Orthodox banker" Pugachov is the chief banker of the "almighty ghosts" group and the middleman between them and the top bishops and archbishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. Pugachov, who lives permanently in Southern France but has great influence over the Russian economy, intends to establish control over the fabulously rich natural resources of the Sakha-Yakutia Republic in Russia's far Northeast.

• Minister of the Interior (chief of police) Boris Gryzlov;
• Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov;
• General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov;
• Chief of the Audit Chamber Sergei Stepashin, who was prime minister of Russia in May-July 1999.

The major enemies of the "almighty ghosts" and their top subordinates in the second half of 2001 include the following top-ranking officials:

• Minister of Communications (chief of the Russian railways) Nikolai Aksyonenko;
• Secretary of the Security Council Vladimir Rushailo;
• Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu;
• Chief of the Customs Service Mikhail Vanin;
• Minister of Mass Media Mikhail Lesin;
• Minister of Finances Alexei Kudrin;
• President of the UES (Russia's power supply system) Anatoly Chubais; and
• Chief of the Kremlin administration Alexander Voloshin.

All these people are, to put it mildly, no angels, but they have no close ties to the FSB/KGB system. The "almighty ghosts" and their associates intend to topple these people and to replace each of them with obedient "gebists" (the popular nickname for FSB/KGB officers in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union).

This would give the "ghosts" control over financial flows measured in tens of billions of dollars annually and would make them the unopposed rulers of Russia.

2. A Little Bit of Ancient Cosmology

In autumn 1997, the Republican-controlled Foreign Affairs Commission of the House of Representatives published a report — the first such report — detailing the real structure and major features of the present Russian power system. The report stressed that Russia's "political-economic elite" is composed of three major components:

1. "Full-time criminals," such as the aforementioned Solntsevo group;
2. Corrupt and criminalized officials; and
3. Criminalized businessmen, controlling almost all of the large and medium-sized enterprises in Russia.

According to ancient cosmology, three whales supporting the universe are, in their turn, standing on a great turtle. Now, at the end of 2001, we finally can observe this turtle — perfectly disguised for about a decade — holding up the three whales of New Russia. Yes, the turtle is the FSB/KGB.

The triply-accursed KGB is back, mighty as never before and ruling supreme in Russia, with the aid of criminal groups of all sorts. So much for Russian democracy, Russian market economy, and Russia's "difficult but glorious path to capitalism."

Dr. Alexandr V. Nemets is a consultant to the American Foreign Policy Council. He is co-author of "Chinese-Russian Military Relations, Fate of Taiwan and New Geopolitics."

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