Former KGB chief warns of security-service war
MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images It says a lot about the state of Russian democracy that the most relevant political feud may be between factions of the secret services rather than between political parties: The former head of the Soviet KGB warned on Wednesday that a conflict between rival Russian security services could lead to “big trouble” ...
MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images
It says a lot about the state of Russian democracy that the most relevant political feud may be between factions of the secret services rather than between political parties:
The former head of the Soviet KGB warned on Wednesday that a conflict between rival Russian security services could lead to “big trouble” and urged feuding clans to unite around President Vladimir Putin.
It’s just as well that the intra-secret service squabble has broken into the open, though, because it may be the only genuine political dialogue Russians will witness: Putin’s United Russia party recently refused even to debate its struggling opponents on air.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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