Putin orders FSB to step up surveillance of Russians and borders

President Vladimir Putin on Monday (19 December) ordered the Federal Security Services to step up surveillance of Russian society and the country’s borders to prevent risks from abroad and traitors at home.

Speaking on Security Services Day – widely celebrated in Russia – Putin said the “emergence of new threats” increases the need for greater intelligence activity.

“The FSB Border Guard Service must step up its work. The state border is the most important, key boundary for ensuring the country’s security, and it must be guarded safely. Attempts to break it must be prevented promptly and efficiently using the existing capacities and tools, including mobile and special task units”, Putin said, according to the Kremlin website.

Putin instructed the FSB to “significantly improve your work in key areas, and use your operational, technical and personnel potential to the fullest”.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB in which Putin was a junior officer during the Cold War, has already been operating in Russia as an expansive surveillance and censorship apparatus and Moscow’s invasion in Ukraine has involved a large swathe of the security services.

“The counterintelligence agencies, including the military ones, need to show utmost readiness and concentration. It is necessary to put a firm stop to the activities of foreign special services, and to promptly identify traitors, spies and diversionists”, Putin said.

FSB, headed by Putin ally Alexander Bortnikov, will also increase oversight of mass gatherings, strategic facilities and energy infrastructure.

Since the start of the war, demonstrations and dissent have been swiftly quelled in Russia, with more than 1,300 detained in September at protests denouncing Putin’s military mobilisation of 300,000.

In a rare admission of the invasion of Ukraine not going smoothly, Putin said that the situation in Ukraine’s regions that Moscow moved to annex in September is “extremely complicated” and ordered the FSB to ensure the “safety” of people living there.

“Your duty is to do everything in your power to ensure their safety and respect for their rights and freedoms. On our part, we will continue to supply the new units with modern equipment and weapons, as well as experienced personnel”, Putin said.

There is no end in sight to Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, now in its 10th month. The conflict, Europe’s largest since World War Two, has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes, and reduced cities to ruins.

Moscow calls its invasion a “special operation” to denazify and demilitarise its neighbour. Kyiv and its allies in the West call it an unprovoked war of aggression to grab land.