whether it's because he's saber-rattling
with other superpowers on the world
stage or making his critics turn up dead
plenty of people would like to see
vladimir putin the controversial
president of the russian federation get
a taste of his own medicine that's why a
man like him needs world-class
bodyguards and a complex and
well-organized security service to
direct them but considering we're
talking about putin here
a man whose leadership and lifestyle can
generously be called
eccentric it was never going to be that
simple when it comes to him you're
always going to find hidden layers of
intrigue espionage corruption and even
some good old-fashioned murder and today
we're not only going to talk about the
shady private groups that defend putin's
physical safety within russia's borders
we're also going to talk about the even
more sinister secret groups that defend
putin's political interests abroad
grab yourself a warm glass of polonium
laced tea and let's get started in a
wider sense the government body
responsible for keeping all russian
political bigwigs safe is the
ferrognalia schuster or federal
protective service in english the u.s
doesn't have a department that's a
one-to-one parallel with the fso but the
closest comparison is somewhere between
the secret service and its parent
department homeland security the largest
difference being under putin's heavily
centralized russian government the fso
has consolidated a truly frightening
amount of political power for a security
agency while the us has checks and
balances enshrined by the constitution
russia isn't all that concerned with the
separation of powers checks and balances
just get in the way of what vladimir
putin wants and within russia what putin
wants putin gets the fso is essentially
no oversight and it has the legal
authority to perform
warrantless searches surveillance and
wiretaps make unsubstantiated arrests
and boss around other state agencies
through its various political civil wars
with fellow agencies and departments the
fso has been able to gain influence over
things like the national budget
essentially allowing billions of rubles
to pass through them into contractors of
their choice
the fso also allegedly performs a number
of extremely weird tasks for a security
agency like performing secret
sociological studies on the russian
people for the government's internal use
and beyond that it even has access to
the legendary black box which is
essentially the russian answer to the
nuclear football the nuclear briefcase
then holds the keys to armageddon so
you've probably gathered right now that
in addition to making sure none of
putin's many enemies get to jump on him
the fso is a terrifyingly powerful
agency and ironically the fso is
actually way more secret than the u.s
secret service
exact numbers on things like the fso's
budget and its total number of employees
are highly classified russian state
secrets putin himself is xkgb
to be all cloak and dagger is
practically second nature to him so it
should really come as no surprise that
the organization keeping him safe
operates without transparency speaking
of the kgb it probably won't surprise
you that the origins of the fso are
closely tied to this infamous cold war
spy agency the fso was founded in 1996
by former kgb general and boris yeltsin
bodyguard alexander korsakoff a
notoriously shady and power-hungry
figure himself who during his tenure
constantly tried to parlay his security
position into political influence he
wrote in his memoir that he and the fso
effectively ran the country for several
years and on that front not a great deal
has changed the main difference is that
vladimir putin is now at the top of the
pyramid but just below putin on his
pyramid for many years was the
supervisor of the fso and leader of
putin's personal security team
general victor zolotov unsurprisingly
for a putin devotee general zolatov is a
kind of weirdo going by the nickname
generalissimo and being the subject of
numerous corruption charges and
international sanctions for his
illegal conduct he was previously the
chief of a russian security detachment
known informally as the men in black
because of their love of black suits and
sunglasses these sinister g-men also
apparently even rocked heavy weaponry
like rocket launchers while on the job
and in one particularly strange incident
zolotov challenged one of his detractors
to an actual duel
saying he would make good juicy
mincemeat of him you can probably see
why putin took a shine to the guy
like a mob boss or former us president
donald trump putin tends to fill key
roles with people he likes
rather than the people who are best
suited to the job so what else do we
know about the fso and its mysterious
activities unofficial estimations
believe that the fso is a private
military reserve of around 20
000 troops with additional thousands of
plainclothes and civilian operatives the
fso is a vast umbrella department for a
huge number of sub agencies
including an elite military group called
the kremlin regiment also known as the
presidential regiment whose main duties
include as you can probably guess the
protection of the president of russia
another incredibly important group under
the banner of the fso is the
presidential security service or the sbp
and its native russian when you picture
the guy
physically standing around putin when
he's delivering a presidential dress or
pulling another bizarre publicity stunt
these are the guys you're picturing you
might see them dressed like zolotov
style men in black or
hidden in civilian ware among the crowd
but wherever putin goes the spp
are bound to follow if you've learned
anything in this video so far it's that
all the security agencies tasked with
guarding putin have some of his
trademark secrecy and corruption it's
believed by some that the sbp were in
putin's deep pockets even when he wasn't
officially in power putin's first two
terms lasted from 1999 to 2008 before
the title was briefly taken away by
dmitry medvedev between 2008 and 2012
rumor had circulated that during
medvedev's presidency the sbp were
keeping tabs on medvedev on putin's
behalf though if you ask putin about
this you may find that you'll
accidentally fall down an elevator shaft
into some bullets in the near future
you'll probably be delighted to learn
that the sbp was under the command of
our good friend generalissimo zolaton
for 13 years
though it's now apparently headed by the
more secretive commander alexei robesnoy
the spp
is believed to have somewhere between
two thousand and nine thousand
non-uniformed personnel though
unsurprisingly there are no official
numbers on this what we know about the
day-to-day operations for the sbp
the methods and equipment they tend to
employ is extremely minimal though there
is evidence that as of 2016 the russian
sps pistol came their official firearm
like the proverbial russian nesting doll
there's also a smaller agency within the
sbp
known as the psychological security
department this sounds like something
straight out of a sci-fi dystopia but
it's actually an intelligence agency
that analyzes all available intel about
potential risks to presidential safety
okay so
maybe it is just something out of a
sci-fi dystopia it's also a real meeting
of the minds as it consolidates experts
from federal internal security military
intelligence and foreign intelligence
into one super branch
but how they actually employ this
information to protect putin from
potential threats is you guessed it
beyond classified but hey
as much as we'd like to mention the
rampant corruption and shading dealings
of these various secret agencies
it isn't easy to be a bodyguard for a
major political leader especially
vladimir putin if you're expected to
fight off would-be assassins or even
take a bullet for your president it's
fair to say that you deserve to be well
compensated for your work and to putin's
credit he has compensated his bodyguards
extremely well
with rampant corruption and shady
dealings of course this is the story of
the ruplevka incident a scandal that
intimately involved both
putin and his security forces as we
mentioned earlier most of the people in
key positions orbiting putin were career
putin toadies willing to show
unflinching loyalty to their president
as a result those who had proven their
loyalty were pretty much guaranteed
lifetime appointments in putin's
administration
many that had once guarded him were
given cushy high-power political jobs as
well as complementary land and money the
three most significant examples of this
happening
were with oleg clementiev alexi duman
and of course the one and only victor
zolotov the problem with giving people
land is that it doesn't exactly grow on
trees and while russia is a massive
country for a valuable land to be given
it first has to be taken
this is where an area known as rublevka
came into play
back in 1924 soviet military officer
felix jersinsky also known as
iron felix decided that their new
burgeoning superpower of a country
needed more food that's why he founded
the massive
gorky 2 poultry plant on some land
outside of moscow where thousands of
hard-working russians were employed to
rear meat and eggs for the motherland
hundreds of soviet farm workers settled
in the area
as the plant grew and consumed the
surrounding villages workers like this
were soviet russia's backbone having
dutifully served the country's
industrial rise and fought for it in
both world wars for decades the land
these workers called home was seen as
dirt cheap farming territory until putin
himself settled nearby causing the real
estate value to skyrocket
that's when it became time for putin to
give his old security buddies some
presidential handouts he decided that
this land would be the perfect tribute
generations of farm workers and war
veterans got shafted in the process as
land they believed was theirs was
divided up and given to putin's
ex-guards legal battles over this land
are still being fought today but given
the massive amount of power putin has
over every branch of the russian
government things aren't looking
optimistic for the little guy on this
one so
now that we've covered the secretive
glorified putin henchmen that make up
his domestic security personnel who are
the shady private military personnel
carrying out his will overseas with
essentially no oversight on the
international stage that dubious honor
goes to the wagner group a private
military contractor sometimes referred
to as putin's private army the guys
doing his dirty work on russian turf
are already sus as all hell but the
mercenaries under the employ of the
wagner group are a whole different level
to give you some context this group of
shady russian mercs was founded by
putin-aligned russian businessman evgeny
pragosian who works in the food service
industry when not
allegedly funding military operations
you can tell they're a group after
putin's heart because they spend a lot
of time helping to prop up bashar
al-assad
in syria and have allegedly been
involved with the murder of journalists
in central africa
seeing as russia has a pretty sizable
army fifth largest in the world in fact
you may be wondering why does putin need
a much smaller group of private
mercenaries on hand the answer is simple
much like how he gets his russian
security henchmen to do much of his
dirty work domestically the wagner group
gives him plausible deniability from
certain overseas activities getting the
actual russian army involved would cause
a messy international incident but
mercenaries not officially tied to him
don't have the same
political ramifications technically
speaking mercenary activities are
actually illegal in russia which is
another reason the wagner group is
planted firmly under putin's thumb
if they don't do his bidding he can
easily have them locked up think of it
as a gentleman's agreement
about the world's least gentlemanly
activities as we mentioned at the start
of the video vladimir putin is a man
with a hell of a lot of enemies and
there are some very good reasons for
that he's corrupt militarily aggressive
and is one of the top purveyors of
political assassination in the developed
world it's no surprise then that his
private security at home and abroad are
equally covert cutthroat and corrupt
individuals they're the kind of security
you need other security to protect
yourself from and frankly that's just
how putin likes it now check out a day
in the life of putin and is vladimir
putin the richest man alive for more
crazy facts about this eccentric russian
president