True identity of the FBI mole in the Russian SVR revealed

Remember how the Russian newspaper Kommersant leaked name, rank and position of the traitor who betrayed the Russian "illegals" to the FBI? Well, they mostly got it right, except they had the wrong name, and no photos. These details have now also been leaked to the Russian media and quite a few things are now known about him, all of them horribly embarrassing for the SVR.

First, not only was he a top KGB official, but he came from what might arguably called the most prestigious and successful special forces training organization ever formed: the KUOS of the KGB.

The letters KUOS stand for "Advanced Officer Perfectioning Course" (КУОС: Курсы Усовершенствования Офицерского Состава).  Under that rather banal name stood an absolutely unique KGB organization: the KUOS was tasked with creating special forces operators which would also be real, fully trained spies and real, fully trained special operators. I know, many countries and organizations (including the US CIA) claim to have such forces, but in reality only the Soviets succeeded in creating such a very rare breed of agents.

KUOS candidates had to have at least two college degrees (typically: engineering and foreign languages), they were all trained in various KGB academies and schools which prepared the cadre of the PGU (First Chief Main Directorate - the foreign intelligence branch of the KGB which later became the SVR).  Many of them also had working experience in the 2nd Main Directorate (Counter-Intelligence), but they were later sent to a special forces training program which was at least as extensive as anything the Spetsnaz GRU, the British SAS or the US 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment ("Delta" force) ever got. In fact, they KUOS was openly modeled on the British SAS program, only adapted to the Soviet needs.  I know for a fact that in several competitions the KUOS officers out-performed their formidable Spetsnaz GRU colleagues.

The KUOS produced a top elite unit which had different names in different times, including Zenit, Kaskad or Vympel. The creation of these special KGB Spetsnaz units was the initiative of Yuri Andropov, who later became Secretary General of the CPSU. He is also the man who created the famous anti-terrorist unit "Alpha".

Coming back to Poteev, he was a member of the Zenit and Kaskad units and because of this an old photo of the man does exist.  In fact, it has been on the Internet for years.

I took the photo, made a blowup of it, and cleaned it a little.

Meet Nikolai Pavlovich Poteev aka "Colonel Shcherbakov":

This photo was taken in Afghanistan, decades ago, when he still was a serving officer of the Zenit unit.

By any criteria, Poteev was member of the elite of the elite, the top of the top, the best of the best, you name it.  His career was nothing short of stellar and I can only imagine the absolute sense of horror and betrayal felt by his comrades when they learned of his treason.

Furthermore, the newly revealed details of his biography tell me that he must have been a "walk-in" as I just cannot imagine a KUOS officer being baited or otherwise tricked by the FBI into betraying his fellow comrades and his country.

In September of 1991 I had the very rare opportunity to personally meet several KUOS graduates one evening in Moscow, in a very private and informal setting (in fact, we spend much of the night drinking, singing songs and talking about the past when we used to be mortal enemies of each other) and one of them, a former Kaskad commander, became a good friend of mine.  I am absolutely sure that all of these men would much rather die than to commit an act of treason.  No, Poteev must have been a "walk-in".

To make things even worse, Poteevs' father was a Hero of the Soviet Union, a WWII veteran of the tank forces (he died in 1972).

I don't know if in the history of espionage their has ever been a case of a more painful and soul-wrecking betrayal than the one of the treason committed by Poteev.

I can only speculate about his motives, but my personal recollections of the KUOS graduates makes me strongly lean towards the following version which is, I want to insist on that here, a pure product of my imagination:

I believe that like most of his fellow KUOS graduates Poteev must have been deeply disgusted by the events of 1991.  Not only by the fall of the Soviet Union (the KGB had predicted that it would happen long before 1991), but by the takeover of Russia by Eltsin, his so called "oligarchs", and the criminal mob.  Furthermore, I believe that, just like the vast majority of his fellow KUOS graduates, he must have hated the "buffoon communists" like Ziuganov, the "buffoon patriots" like Zhirinosvski or the "buffoon democrats" like Chubais.  Poteev probably felt that his country had betrayed him and everything he had given his life for and he decided to take revenge on it.

Most KUOS officers left during the early Eltsin years, many drowned their disgust and pain in alcohol, other left to live in faraway rural villages.  Some made a brilliant career in the new Russian "business" world.  Some, very few, even stayed in, or close to, the various current FSB Spetsnaz units and schools.  But all in all, the old KGB Spetsnaz are a thing of the past, never to be re-created again.

I might well be wrong about all this, but this is my best guess.  It might well be that all of this info is wrong, that no Poteev ever really existed.  But if this information is correct, then this is a truly shattering blow to the entire Russian intelligence community which will take decades to recover from it.

The Saker

The "fake Russian spies" were not fake at all! (UPDATED!)

Remember the case of the fake Russian spies including the sexy Anna Champan?

If not, check out my piece The proof that the 11 Russian spies were not spies at all.

Well, turns out that they were real spies after all, very very real spies indeed.  So what was the deal with all the nonsense the FBI fed us about their arrest?  The Russian newspaper Kommersant actually found out what really happened in this rather amazing story.

First, all the so-called "evidence" that they guys were spies?  It was all nonsense.  The FBI had no proof at all.  The FBI had something far better and more precious, something they chose to hide as best they could.  The FBI had an absolutely unique agent inside the super-secret department of the Russian Intelligence Service which deals with "illegals": the "S" Directorate of the SVR.  Kommersant found out the real name, rank and position of this traitor: Colonel Shcherbakov, head of the US Direction of the "S" Directorate of the SVR.  In terms of intelligence, this is a nuclear bomb.  This means that the person who betrayed these illegals was basically the top man for all illegals in the USA.  I would say that a betrayal by a person in such a position is worse than Robert Hanssen, Ana Belen Montes, John Walker and Aldrich Ames combined, not so much in terms of compromised secrets, but in terms of the US being able to penetrate the "Holy of Holies" of the SVR.

Let me immediately add here that there are no details of how Shcherbakov became an US mole.  My personal opinion is that, as is the case with the vast majority of high-level spies, he was not recruited but that he was a so-called "walk-in" - a person who deliberately approaches a foreign intelligence service and offers his/her services.  Still, even if Shcherbakov was a walk-in, the fact that the FBI could maintain a contact with him for about 10 years is an absolutely monumental failure for the SVR.

To make things even worse, it now appears that the SVR also managed not to notice that Shcherbakov's daughter was studying in the USA and that his other son suddenly left the country right before Medvedev's visit to the USA.

And while everybody was focused on the sexy Anna Chapman, it was another spy, much less noticed, which had a stellar career which was compromised by Shcherbakov's betrayal: "Juan Lazaro", whose real name was Mikhail Anatolevich Vasenkov (see photo), who had spend his entire career undetected.  Born in 1945, he was infiltrated into the West sometime in 1961 and he was given the right to retire with the rank of General, but he turned down the offer and continued to collect valuable information (in particular photographic).  After his arrest, he was tortured by the FBI who broke several of his ribs and one leg, yet he did not say a single word under interrogation.  The mere fact that the FBI could shadow these 11 spies for a decade without ever finding out any proof of their activities is in itself a testimony to their skills.

This is why Shcherbakov's betrayal hurts the SVR so much.

According to Kommersant, this total debacle in the SVR has triggered an enormous rage amongst the SVR cadre and the rest of the government.  One SVR official openly told Kommersant that a killer team has been send out to execute Shcherbakov and that "heads and epaulets" will be "torn off".  Rumors also abound that the SVR will be re-subordinated to the FSB thereby re-creating a real "KGB-successor" agency.  A massive investigation is now under way and many officials will loose their jobs or be investigated for criminal actions.

Now that this story has broken into the open the FBI has no more reasons to feed the public all sorts of lame fairy tales about invisible ink, Anna Chapman calling daddy in Moscow and the rest of the nonsense we were told.  Still, we will not be told too much: according to Kommersant, this entire affair is so huge that both sides chose to tone it down to a minimum to avoid tensions between Russia and the USA.

What is certain is that a major crisis is now affecting at least two of the key elements of the Russian state: the Ministry of Defense and the SVR.  And its not like the military intelligence service can gloat over the SVR's current misery.  They had their own super-traitor, GRU Major-General Dimitry Poliakov (another walk-in) who worked for the FBI from 1960 until his retirement in 1980 (he was finally caught in 1986 and executed in 1988).  The GRU, by the way, is also in a crisis due to various pressures to downsize it or even re-subordinate it.

The Russian government is in a mess, and there are no signs at all that Medvedev has any ideas as to how to fix it.

UPDATE1: President Medvedev has essentially confirmed the information published by Kommersant by stating that: "As far as I am concerned, what was published in Kommersant was not news. I found out about it on the day it happened, with all its attributes, but there has to be an examination of this. Life goes on. The relevant lessons from it will be studied," Medvedev said at a G20 summit press conference. Medvedev refused to comment on the situation within the SVR but said a thorough investigation into the episode had been launched.  "We would not want to comment on our further decisions. This is a question for those bodies concerned with this matter"

UPDATE2: According to Argumenty i Fakty, SVR officials denied that they ever had a "traitor Shcherbakov" in their ranks. Not only that, but the SVR sources AiF spoke to denied literally every single aspect of the story published by Kommersant.  They probably were not told that their President thought otherwise.

US and Russia swapping 'spies'

(Carlo - I reply to your emails via this post for all, I hope you don't mind - VS)

Now its official: the USA and Russia have swapped 'spies'. Or are they?!

Well, the Russians have for sure released some very real spies, including a nuclear scientist and even a former GRU Colonel (now that there is no death penalty in Russia, this guy should, IMHO, have received life without parole. An agency like the GRU simply cannot afford to have traitors in its midst).

But does that make the Russian 'spies' in the US any more real? I absolutely do not think so. I have no idea why the Russian government agreed to this deal and I very much regret that it did. I would have loved to see these absolutely ridiculous accusations cross-examined. Of course, the US regime could have done what it does so often - ordered a secret trial. So from the humanitarian point of view, I am happy for the 11 "spies" that they are now back in Russia. Except for the case of Sergei Skripal, I see nothing wrong with the Russians expelling a number of spies to get their nationals back.

But does that make them real SVR 'illegals'? Of course not.

So maybe some other agency was involved. Under Eltsin there was a quasi constant "reforming" of the Russian intelligence community with constant name changes, boss changes, missions changes, fusion of agencies, etc. etc. Eltsin's notorious bodyguard Korzhakov even created his own, as did all the big "new Russian" oligarchs and many banks. And since the "private sector' and the Russian mob are really so intertwined as to be indistinguishable, God only knows how many private spy agencies or "for hire" spy agencies are out there. These 11 could have been linked to any of them.

Another thing which supports this version is that, at least according to the FBI, these guys have been monitored for a full decade. Well, if the FBI monitored them for a full decade, that means that whatever training or preparations they got was in the mid to late 1990s - exactly during the infamous Eltsin years. And one can easily imagine that what these 11 did was to get the hell out of a crisis ravaged Russia and then flashed a middle-finger to Eltsin's wannabe spy masters. After all, it is quite clear from the FBI documents that even though these 11 were monitored during a decade, they did absolutely nothing illegal. In other words, they were happy to enjoy their new lives and did not give a damn about spying.

In theory, it is conceivable that this could have happened with the SVR but I honestly don't think so. I have had the opportunity to meet a number of former PGU SSSR (First Main Directorate of the KGB, the external intelligence branch, which then became the SVR) officers in the mid 1990s and while they were not happy about the situation of their agency, they did not report an apocalyptic collapse down to a "kindergarten level" of spy playing.

My guess is therefore that these 11 were the product of some semi-private operation which the Russian government today is embarrassed by and this is why they agreed to the exchange.

The Saker

After fake terrorists, now fake spies?!

I am reading the official affidavit of the FBI (see here and here) and I can't believe the nonsense I am reading.

First, the "super-dooper secret agents" are charged with a) not registering as agents of a foreign government and b) money laundering. Yep, no charges of spying.

Then, it get better. According to the affidavit, the FBI decrypted a "super-dooper secret message" from Moscow explaining to the apparently clueless spies what they were supposed to do in the USA:


Good thing that these poor spies were told what they are supposed to be doing, right?

The FBI affidavit then describe how the "super-dooper spies" set up a basic wifi network to communicate between two laptops (click on the image below for the super secret "wifi for dummies" techniques):


Then one of the super-dooper secret spies is recorded talking to an FBI undercover officer posing as a Russian diplomat and the two talk in Russian!


Now, nevermind the fact that illegal agents ("no-cover" spies) do not operate in networks, and nevermind that they never ever meet with representatives of the nation their working for unless it is with their handler, it is simply insane to imagine that a Russian "illegal" would be chatting in Russian while trying to impersonate an American.

It is absolutely clear to me that all this nonsense has nothing to do at all with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). At best, the FBI caught some shady Russian businesspeople with contacts in Russia and Cyprus. At worst, this entire fairytale is yet another lame attempt by the FBI to prove its utility.

Either way, it is without doubt an insult to our intelligence.

The Saker

Putin's legacy and the new Russia

Following Putin's investiture as Russia's next President after Boris Eltsin Russia underwent a dramatic transformation proving wrong those who had assumed that since Putin 'had been picked by Eltsin' the country would continue on its previous course. It is now obvious that the drunken Eltsin had not 'picked' anyone, but that powerful forces had imposed Putin as the successor to Elstin who was forced to announce his resignation on live TV on December 31, 1999.

Some of the changes which have occured are definitely due to the price of oil which, courtesy of the policies of the US Neocons, climbed dramatically since December 1999. Russia, now awash with cash, could not only start re-building much of what had been destroyed in the catastrophic nineties, but it could also start throwing around some of its newly aquired financial and political weight.

A number of factors have contributed to the new face of Putin's Russia:

Powerful intelligence and security agencies

First and foremost, Putin's accession to power was a major victory for what remained of the crippled the intelligence and security services of the former Soviet Union. All of them, with one very important exception, had been crippled by the so-called 'reforms' of the Eltsin era. Now, under Putin, this period of chaos and collapse has come to an end. There are still tensions between the various security agencies, but by and large the three "big ones" (SVR, foreign intelligence, FSB, internal security, GRU, military intelligence) have recovered much of their former capabilities and are not acting in a coordinated manner.

Putin, himself a former officier of the KGB's external intelligence directorate (PGU) has apparently even succeeded in getting powerful GRU to fully support him. For example, he has built new high-tech luxury headquarters for the GRU (see photo) which can only be described as lavish and he personally came to inaugurate them.

This event was particularly remarkable for two reasons: not only had the GRU always been the arch-rival of the KGB (the two organizations purged each other in the past) but, unlike the KGB, it used to be a super-secret organization whose existence was never mentioned publicly (most Soviets did not even know its name). For the ex-PGU KGB officer Putin to come and inaugurate these new headwuarters in the presence of all the main Russian TV channels (see video here) was something quite extraordinary. Even more amazing is the fact that these new headquarters were far superior to anything the SVR foreign intelligence service had (in fact, these are probably the most luxurious and advanced headquarters for any military intelligence agency anywhere in the world).

At the inauguration, Putin made a very interesting speech (full text here) in which he praised the GRU for its excellent past performance and in which he stressed its importance, alongside all the other security and intelligence agencies, for the future security of Russia. His speech was a public commitment for an unwavering support of the GRU the future. The old enmity between the KGB and the GRU certainly seem over at last.

One might get the idea that the quasi total collapse of the Russian armed forces in the nineties should have equally affected the GRU, but that would be very mistaken: due to its secretive nature, the GRU was the only former Soviet intelligence/security agency which suffered very little during this period. While it lost some of its agents abroad and while some of its combat forces did go through difficulties (lack of funds, officers leaving to join organized crime, the war in Chechnia), its core capabilities were generally preserved and, in some ways, expanded.

The war in Chechnia proved particularly crucial for the GRU under whose control the Spetsnaz forces have remained and who proved invaluable in successfully suppressing the Chechen insurgency (note: there have been many (and often silly) things written about the many and various so-called 'Spetsnaz forces' existing in Russia today; I am only referring here to the ones under GRU control). In fact, Putin and his administration have fully realized that the conflict in Chechnia is far more likely to be a blueprint for future security challenges for Russia that a 'World War III' -type of scenario with large armored formations fighting or nuclear strikes exchanged. Consequently, while maintaining a minimal deterrent capability for such a major conflict, Russia has clearly defined intelligence and special operations has the top military security priority.

Simultaneously, the SVR has been directed to focus on political and economic intelligence, in particular throught its extensive penetration of and, to a certain degree, by the new Russian business elite and organized crime.

Lastly, the FSB has gradually been re-built into an effective internal security force thanks for far better funding and a restored public image.

Government, business and organized crime

It now is simply impossible to say where the legitimate Russian business community ends and where Russian organized crime begins. Furthermore, considering the mutual interpenetration of government, business and organized crime, Russia could be fairly be described as a "thugocracy". While this has arguably reached previously unheard of proportions, this is hardly something really new.

Since before the 1917 Revoltuion, Bolshevik Party was composed of two main elements: the ideologues (who openly advocated terror as a key political instrument) and regular criminals. These two groups, united in a common hatred of the traditional Russian culture, joined forces in overthrowing the corrupt and totally incompetent Provisional Government of Kerensky. Under Lenin, these two elements coexisted to a certain degree, but the top echelons of the Party where firmly in the ideologues' hands. After Lenin's death, the common thugs, lead by Stalin, gradually eliminated the ideologues in a series of bloody purges and secured their grip on power. The regular thugs remained in power until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

One illustration of this phenomenon can be found in the little-known fact that even the presumably omnipotent KGB was barred from even investigating members of the Central Committee (in contrast, under Lenin, the ChK (ancestor of the KGB) could investigate anyone it wanted, including top Party official). This situation was extremely conducive to large scale corruption and crime which always flourished in the former Soviet Union.

After 1991, a large section of the former Party elites simply plundered the country from all its resources and wealth and the size and power of the Russian mob simply exploded. Billions of dollars were taken out of the country. Eventually, most of the original 'oligarchs', mobsters and assorted 'New Russian businessmen' either emigrated, retired, were jailed or were killed by competitors. Those who remained, arguably the toughest and smartest, fused into the new power elite which now rules Russia.

The Russian intelligence community has made good use of this new situation and instead of relying mainly on diplomats, TASS correspondents or trade representatives as in the past, it now can conduct its operations thorough a vast and diverse array of Russians abroad which now also includes tourists, business people, NGO members, emigres, etc. As a result, Russian intelligence collection capabilities have been vastly improved.

Not so new ideologies revived to achieve popular support

The old communist ideology is not quite dead yet and some, mostly elderly, people still believe in it, but its political relevance is close to zero, in particular among the younger generation. Realizing that there was a need to fill this ideological vacuum, the new rulers of Russia have resurrected an old Stalinist favorite, the ideology of 'national-Bolshevism', and they adapted it to the new realities. The regime was greatly aided in this by the other Soviet era institution (besides the GRU) which had undergone no significant reform whatsoever: the Moscow Patriarchate, an old ally of the Soviet regime.

Immediately after Putin's arrival in the Kremlin the SVR foreign intelligence agency directed the Moscow Patriarchate to embark on a major campaign to attempt to lure the previously anti-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (sometimes called the "White Church") back into Moscow's fold. Aided by some sympathizers among the bishops of the emigre Church, this operation fully succeeded and, in May of 2007, the two previously hostile branches of the Russian Orthodox Church signed a union declaration which turned the former "White Church" into little more than a foreign branch of the Moscow Patriarchate. More importantly, Putin could now claim that the 'civil war was over' and that 'the entire Russian Orthodox Church supports the government'.

The dominant ideology of the new Russia is a strange mix of several 'shells' with very little substance to them: the appearance of democracy, mixed with an appearance of patriotism, mixed with an appearance of Orthodox Christianity - all packaged with a bizarre combination of pre-1917, old Soviet and "new Russian' symbols. An example of that is the 'new' Russian national anthem which kept the music of the old Soviet one, but which now features new lyrics.

In reality, of course, this new ideology is just a parody of the real thing, and the rulers of Russia are neither democratic, nor patriotic nor Orthodox: they are only about power. At the core, they are still simply thugs.

Still, traditional Russian flags are seen alongside red Soviet-style banners, ex-KGB officers are shown on TV attending church services, and 'patriotic values' are exalted in the official media. As a result, this more palatable ideological mixture, combined with improved government services, an objectively stronger Russian economy and vivid memories of the horrors on the nineties, provide a new propaganda machine (modeled on the US corporate media) with all the ingredients to make Vladimir Putin and his regime popular with many Russians.

Authoritarianism with a 'human face'?

The part of the old KGB which dealt with political dissent (the 5th Main Directorate) was rapidly disbanded after the end of the Soviet Union. It could never have dreamed of achieving what a Western-style propaganda machine did for Putin since 2000. Not only is Putin genuinely popular in Russia, but even the old KGB is seen by many as not nearly as bad as some would think. According to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the author of the seminal "Gulag Archipelago", the Bolshevik terror in Russia killed an estimated 70'000'000 people. Still, Putin had no difficulties whatsoever when he created the official holiday of the "day of the workers of the security services of the Russian Federation" (день работников органов безопасности РФ), otherwise known as the "day of the Chekist", celebrated on the 20th of December each year, the date in which the ancestor of the KGB, the Cheka, was created by Vladimir Lenin immediately after the Bolshevik 'October Revolution'. In comparison with the chaos, terror and plunder of Russia under the 'democratic' Eltsin regime, the very real, if harsh, order most Soviets enjoyed under the watchful eye of the KGB seems preferable to most Russians. And just as in the United States, most Russians prefer the safety of a police state to, for example, the kind of horrors Chechen terrorists have perpetrated against innocent civilians.

A quiet but dangerous foe for the USA

The contrast between Eltsin and Putin external policies could not have been greater. Where Eltsin, and his pathetic foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev, did everything and anything demanded from them by their bosses and protectors in Washington, Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Ivanov (another ex-KGB officer) quietly re-oriented Russia's foreign policy towards a much more independent course.

With drunken Party bureaucrats and subservient lackeys finally gone, Russia's foreign policy immediately, if discreetly, distanced itself from Washington's imperial adventures. While the old, and admittedly often silly, anti-Western propaganda was not revived, Russia has gone to great pains to distance itself from the increasingly reviled Bush administration.

By its insistence that a 'multi-polar' international system needed to resist the 'hegemonic tendencies of some countries' (the nice way of referring to US imperial policies) Russia allied itself to many other countries which shared similar concerns including, most importantly China. Initially Russia had explored the possibility of a 'strategic partnership' with the USA but the crudely anti-Russian policies of the Neocons in the White House, in particularly in the Russian "near abroad" (the former Soviet republics) served to totally alienate Moscow from any such illusions. Now, instead of seeing the USA as a possible partner, Russia sees it as the "main adversary" just as it had in the Soviet era. The blame for this disastrous evolution, at least for the USA, can only be laid on the Bush administration whose Neocons probably hate anything Russian even more than they hate anything Islamic.

Unlike the old USSR, Putin's Russia will not engage in useless rhetorical attacks against the West and we will not see Putin banging his shoe at the UN anytime soon, but the new Russia will oppose the Empire far more effectively by becoming an invisible foe which will quietly act behind the scenes to weaken it in every possible way.

Russian elites are fully aware of the fact that all the main threats to Russia's national interests are directly linked to Washington's systematic support of anything anti-Russian. No matter how undemocratic, corrupt, cruel and otherwise abhorrent a despot is - if he is anti-Russian the US will provide him with aid and support.

The Russian also realize that they cannot overtly oppose Washington and that there is no need for them to do so: the self-defeating policies of the Neocon White House are already weakening the USA more than anything Moscow could do. Russia will thus quietly further develop its capabilities and wait for the USA to further corner itself into an impossible situation (which it is already doing in many places). All Russia needs to do now is avoid getting sucked in in the inevitable decline of the US Empire.

Russia and the coming US aggression against Iran

It has been suggested by some ill-informed commentators that Russia might actually use its military to defend Iran against a US attack. This is utter nonsense. Russia would have absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to loose, in getting militarily involved in a US-Iranian conflict. Considering that there is no way the USA can win a conflict with Iran (see my analysis of Iranian asymmetrical responses in my previous article on this issue) one could make the case that Russia actually has a lot to gain from a US attack on Iran (beginning with yet another dramatic rise in the price of oil). Furthermore, it is my belief that Russia has fundamentally given up the use of military force in any scenario besides self-defense. Whether by choice or as a result of a pragmatic analysis of its capabilities, the new Russian leaders have made no efforts whatsoever to maintain much of an offensive military capability against the USA. It appears that Russia will be quite content to remain a 'only' Eurasian military power and will just maintain enough of a strategic deterrent to prevent the USA from directly attacking it.

Conclusion

One does not need to be an admirer of Vladimir Putin (which I am most definitely not) to recognize his tremendous achievements in a relatively short period of time and under the most difficult of circumstances: the Russian economy is booming, Chechnia is firmly under the control of a pro-Moscow thug, the regime is undeniably popular, Russia is back on the international scene and does not take orders from Washington anymore, government services are gradually becoming functional again and the succession of Putin by his protege Ivanov seems a done deal. While there are still plenty of unresolved problems to deal with (poverty for the old and weak, corruption, legal reforms, the long delayed restructuring of the regular armed forces, social issues such as crime and substance abuse, etc.) none of them represent a major threat to the Russian thugocracy.

It has taken the ex-KGB men less than a decade to bring their version of Russia back on the world stage. This is truly a remarkable achievement.