President Vladimir Putin announced that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, will take over the entire Federal Border Service and parts of the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information, or FAPSI.
Both used to be directorates within the KGB, which was split into several agencies with the collapse of the Soviet Union as a way to weaken the secret services and break with the KGB's repressive past.
Now a restored FSB lacks only the Foreign Intelligence Service and Federal Guard Service, which are responsible for espionage abroad and the physical security of top officials, respectively, to put it back on par with the KGB.
But even without these two now independent services, the FSB has become a "superagency" when compared to the other so-called power agencies, said Alexander Pikayev, defense and security analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center.
In addition to its own staff of tens of thousands, the FSB will now control more than 150,000 border guards armed with thousands of artillery pieces, armored vehicles, patrol boats and aircraft and can engage in intelligence across Russia's borders. They will be under the command of first deputy FSB director Vladimir Pronichev, a former border guard officer.
Parts of the FAPSI agency, whose activities have ranged from conducting opinion polls to encrypting communications, will also now report to FSB director Nikolai Patrushev, whose agency is already responsible for eavesdropping and monitoring Runet.
Patrushev, in turn, reports only to President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who headed the FSB from July 1998 until he was appointed prime minister in August 1999.
Given the lack of parliamentary oversight over the secret services, this could open up more opportunities for abuse of powers, according to Valery Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank. Considering the KGB's history of abuses, "this is alarming," he said.
Pikayev and Nikolai Leonov, former head of KGB's analytical department, agreed that the lack of parliamentary oversight is a problem, but noted that the empowerment of the FSB should have a positive impact on Russia's national security.
Among other things, the FSB may now be more effective in its efforts to counter terrorism and violent separatist threats, especially when it comes to interdicting either groups or funding trickling into the volatile North Caucasus from abroad. A mere merger of the agencies' databases should have a tangible effect, they said.
"In general it is better to have a single agency tackle one major issue, which is state security in this case," Leonov said.
Under Boris Yeltsin, who bore a grudge against the KGB, the secret services were weak and divided. But for Putin, the FSB has been a base of his support, and he has allowed and helped it to consolidate its own power.
The expansion of the FSB's powers, however, could backfire on Putin, who relies on Patrushev to maintain a grip on the agency, according to Pikayev. "Will Patrushev always support Putin? Friends may fall out. It may be dangerous to keep this all in one hand," Pikayev said.
While boosting the FSB's capabilities and bureaucratic clout, Tuesday's reshuffle also weakens the Interior Ministry by stripping it of its anti-drug department and merging it into a new separate, independent committee -- to be headed by a former KGB officer, Viktor Cherkesov.
In addition to taking over this Interior Ministry department, the federal anti-drug committee is also set to engulf most of the staff and resources of the Tax Police.
Under Putin's plan, the responsibility for fighting tax evasion will go to the Interior Ministry.
With the Kremlin reportedly considering also taking away the Interior Ministry's investigation department, it is clear that its political and bureaucratic weight will continue to diminish, according to Pribylovsky and Pikayev. And Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov may be too busy preparing the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, where he is chairman of the higher council, for this year's elections to prevent a further weakening of his ministry.
In addition to empowering the FSB and weakening the Interior Ministry, the president ordered the Defense Ministry to take over those parts of FAPSI that will not be transferred to the FSB, and also created a separate committee within the Defense Ministry to oversee procurement of conventional weapons for all of Russia's so-called power agencies.
Until now, all of these agencies have been responsible for their own procurement and often ordered weaponry and communications systems that were not compatible with those used by Defense Ministry troops. The new procurement committee will be headed by former FAPSI head Vladimir Matyukhin, who has no relevant experience for his new job as he has spent his entire career in the KGB and FAPSI.
Unlike their predecessors, both Matyukhin and outgoing border guard chief Konstantin Totsky lacked the political weight to resist the FSB takeover, one staffer in the State Duma's defense committee said in a phone interview Tuesday. He asked not to be named.
In late 1997 and early 1998, there were several reports that the FSB was eyeing the border guards and FAPSI. The heads of both agencies then, border guard chief Nikolai Bordyuzha and FAPSI director Vladislav Sherstyuk, managed to fight off these attempts.
One sign of their political weight was that Sherstyuk went on to become deputy secretary of the Security Council and Bordyuzha the chief of Yeltsin's staff.
In comparison, Totsky has been named Russia's envoy to NATO while Matyukhin will run a committee within the Defense Ministry, and their agencies have been taken over by Patrushev, one of the men Putin has said he trusts most.
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