And this process is two-directional: not only can information be weaponized; violent organizations can be used as soft-power tools.
The Kremlin is highly effective at infiltrating fringe parties and paramilitary organizations in Central Europe. They are easy to purchase or control, as these extremist groups tend to be small and easily manipulated. There are several examples of this in the region.
Similarly, Polish counterintelligence is currently investigating Mateusz Piskorski, the leader of the Polish leftist party Change Zmiana , as well as former activists of the far-right Polish Congress of the New Right KNP on charges of espionage on behalf of Russia.
Of course, violent organizations are not always predictable partners and can get out of hand. The leader of MNA , a Hungarian extremist movement with extensive ties to Russian secret services, murdered a policeman in Hungary in October , for instance.
While the success of destabilization efforts in the region has been rather limited, this threat should be taken seriously. Despite some sporadic efforts in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, there is still widespread denial about the Russian threat throughout the region. Nationalist leaders such as Milos Zeman in the Czech Republic and Viktor Orban in Hungary tend to boast about their ability to defend their countries from external threats, but they remain silent when it comes to obvious cases of Russian attempts to undermine their sovereignty and humiliate their state institutions.
Several immediate steps should be taken. First, Russian influence in the region should be treated as a security threat, and national interior ministries and counterintelligence agencies must have the staff, resources, and political support to reveal these links. Second, these issues should be raised during bilateral diplomatic discussions. Rosgvardiya, created in , mostly composes of transfers from Interior Ministry forces. It is at once a law enforcement agency for protecting public order and a security force for the regime; an element of state defense that could be used jointly with the military in times of war, crisis, and peace; and an administrative arm to enforce court orders and assist in the transportation of detained citizens.
In the federal budget, Ministry of Defense expenditures were the highest among all security agencies at 1. Notably, the budget of the Ministry of Interior was increased to 1.
Rosgvardiya has a different mandate from other security institutions in Russia, but because it draws its forces from other branches, it is culturally part of an integrated security and military architecture that plans and trains for a full spectrum of operations ranging from law and order and counterterrorism to protection of critical infrastructure and territorial and border defense.
For instance, Rosgvardiya has developed a series of patrol armored vehicles based on various KAMAZ models designed for military applications, and has procured mine-resistant, ambush-protected MRAP vehicles that it outfitted with different gun turrets. Since , for example, OMON has had police vans equipped with lasers with blinding capabilities and acoustic blasters. While the vehicles have been procured for counterterrorism operations, they can potentially be deployed for riot control.
The OMON and special operation units of Rosgvardiya are better paid, equipped, and trained than the operational regiments created within police units in larger Russian cities to assist in maintaining public order, or the regular polices forces of the MVD specializing in criminal investigation, traffic duties, and other public order and safety tasks. Research in policing has shown that increased militarization of law enforcement agencies through the transfer of military-grade firearms and equipment and intelligence agency—style information gathering aimed at political activists lead to an increase in violent behavior in officers.
In Russia, the militarization-violence nexus has been strengthened by the guarantees of anonymity granted to security personnel by law and the indoctrination of Rosgvardiya cadets to regard protesters as state enemies sponsored from abroad. Also contributing to heightened repression in Russia is the patronal nature of Russian politics, whereby the personal relationships of decisionmakers to the Russian president grant informal power and protection and help sustain a system of individualized punishment and reward.
Within this system, Vladimir Putin plays a balancing role, overseeing a security architecture with multiple overlapping agencies involved in perpetual competition. The retail prices for foods sold by the plant were several times higher than market prices. The results of this investigation might have been leaked to the Navalny team, which published an investigative report on corruption in Rosgvardiya. By expanding the aperture of the old and new security agencies, the Russian government has given more power to those who prioritize security—including personal security—over legality, who argue for more repressive policies emboldened by a legal environment conducive to the use of force, and who view popular uprisings as a dangerous and malign export from the West rather than a product of domestic grievances over political and economic conditions in the country.
The Russian regime has developed a sophisticated repressive machine that can effectively quell public dissent and will be relied upon to protect the regime through its eventual political transition in and beyond.
This includes a diverse toolkit of legal pressure on critical media, harassment of independent civil society groups, and enhanced capacity to conduct precision censorship of the internet. Thankfully, authorities have avoided relying on lethal force.
Mariya Y. Omelicheva is a professor of strategy at National War College. All views expressed in this analysis are those of the author and do not represent an official position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.
This publication was funded by the Russia Strategic Initiative, U. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. Opinions, arguments, viewpoints, and conclusions expressed in this work do not represent those of RSI, U. This report is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS , a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues.
Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author s. All rights reserved.
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