The FSO: praetorians, protectors, political force
Last week, I used my column in the Moscow News to ruminate about the Federal Protection Service (FSO), and the paradox raised by the sight of an officer hurriedly relighting the Olympic torch with his cigarette lighter, that this is at once one of the most visible yet secretive agencies within the Russian security apparatus. I wanted to use my blog—where I don’t have to worry about word limits!—to revisit that text and develop some of the thoughts within it.
On the one hand the FSO has a high profile, from the blue-jacketed security officers outside Lenin’s tomb and the goose-stepping Kremlin Guards at the Eternal Flame, to the inevitable sunglasses-and-earpieces coterie of bodyguards around President Putin. And it even gets a cameo role in the Call of Duty video game series.
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