Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Putin Places Spies Under House Arrest

Putin Places Spies Under House Arrest

The Fifth Service of the FSB, Russia’s main intelligence service, has been targeted and the leadership placed under house arrest.
Its head, Colonel-General Sergei Beseda, and his deputy were being held after allegations of misusing operational funds earmarked for subversive activities and for providing poor intelligence ahead of Russia’s now-stuttering invasion. The operation has hit serious obstacles, not least fierce resistance by the Ukrainian armed forces and the unity of the population, including most Russian-speakers, behind President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government.

The Fifth Service was responsible for providing Putin with intelligence on political developments in Ukraine on the eve of the invasion. And it looks like two weeks into the war, it finally dawned on Putin that he was completely misled. The department, fearful of his responses, seems to have told Putin what he wanted to hear.

Beseda and his staff — officially known as the Service of Operative Information and International ties — oversee connections with foreign partners, including the Americans. Within it resides the infamous Department of Operative Information (DOI), which is essentially the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch.

The FSB obtained a right to conduct operations abroad in the late 1990s, when Putin became director of the organization. The new directorate was formed and tasked with spying in particular on Russia’s nearest neighbors. It was at that time that the authors of this article began following the activities of this FSB unit, reporting on its activities for Russian and international media.

When a series of popular uprisings known as the “color revolutions” started to topple the regimes in the post-Soviet republics, the directorate was tasked to promote pro-Kremlin politicians in order to keep those countries within Russia’s sphere of influence.

In 2004, that directorate became a full department, the DOI, a move underlining its importance in the eyes of the Kremlin. Beseda soon became its head, having previously served in the FSB section supervising the Administration of the President, where he had established excellent connections. Officers of DOI were spotted traveling to Belarus, Moldova, and Abkhazia, a breakaway region in Georgia whose separatist insurgency was supported by the Kremlin. There they spied and also tried to influence local politics.

But Ukraine was always one of the key targets for the DOI. In June 2010, the authors received information that a website was being launched to leak sensitive documents from the FSB. The website was hosted on the domain name lubyanskayapravda.com, "The truth on the Lubyanka [the FSB headquarters building].”

Sure enough, the site contained a trove of extremely sensitive documents, such as reports of DOI’s successful active measures operations, addressed directly to Putin. Most of them bore the signature of Col-Gen Beseda.

Among the documents was one that had been forged to undermine the relationship between Ukraine and Turkmenistan; it was a faked report of the Ukrainian security services suggesting Kyiv had funded the Turkmenistan opposition. The DOI had then leaked the report to Ukrainian media, and Russia’s main foreign spy agency, the SVR, swallowed the bait and described it as authentic in a write-up to the Kremlin — proof, as Beseda gloatingly relayed, that his Russian intelligence service had duped another Russian intelligence service.

It was a mishap, but worse was yet to come: in April 2014, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent a request to its Russian counterpart to question Beseda. It said the FSB officer had been in Ukraine on February 20-21 of that year, during the Maidan Revolution, when regime scores of unarmed protesters were shot dead. The Ukrainian government believed it was important to speak to him “in the framework of pre-trial investigation in criminal proceedings on the crimes committed during mass events in Kyiv in [that] period.”

The FSB confirmed that Sergei Beseda was indeed in Kyiv on those days. But it claimed he was there to determine ensure the Russian embassy was properly protected, a version that very few Ukrainians accepted. Since 2014, Beseda has been on US and European Union sanctions lists. The FSB was “involved in the funding and supporting of separatist activities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine,” the US Treasury Department stated.

The Fifth Service emerged unscathed despite the scandal – Beseda’s people remained in charge of supplying intelligence on Ukraine, developing sources on the ground, and conducting subversive operations.

It seems that protective umbrella has now been withdrawn.

Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are nonresident senior fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.) They are Russian investigative journalists, and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
Intel Reports Revenue Beats but Sees 81% Rise in Losses
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
Amazon Reaches Major Automation Milestone with Over One Million Robots
×