Russia's FSB Increasingly 'Sabotaging' Putin's Orders: Report

Cases of sabotage are increasing among Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) employees who wish to leave the agency, according to an independent Russian news outlet.

A former FSB employee told Important Stories, an investigative Russian publication, that after Putin last year banned people from resigning from the agency while his partial mobilization decree remains in place, many employees have been acting out, hoping to be fired.

The Russian president declared a partial mobilization of the population in September 2022, months into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on September 21 last year that Russia would be targeting 300,000 reservists and ex-military personnel with "certain military specialties and relevant experience."

The Kremlin has said it will not issue a decree ending the partial mobilization.

FSB employees who want to quit are increasingly ignoring instructions from management, and committing acts of sabotage, the former worker told Important Stories.

"If management comes in, some answer directly: 'If you don't like the way we work, fire us,'" the source said.

The source spoke to the outlet on condition of anonymity. However, a current employee of the FSB's central office corroborated the source's claims, the publication reported. Newsweek has been unable to verify the specific claims, but they reflect previous reporting about dissatisfaction levels within the FSB.

Last year, Newsweek published a series of leaked emails, purportedly from an FSB whistleblower and sent to Russian dissident exile Vladimir Osechkin, revealing the anger and discontent inside the agency over the war in Ukraine.

The situation described by Important Stories has reportedly meant the FSB's leadership is left with no choice but to entrust complex tasks to unqualified employees.

The publication previously cited sources close to the Kremlin as saying that Putin views the resignations of high-ranking officials as betrayals.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a self-exiled Russian tycoon, told Newsweek in July that less than a third of the FSB would be prepared to back Putin should a mutiny take place in the future.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man before he spoke out against the Russian leader, said he is often contacted by members of the FSB who are disillusioned with Putin's regime and offer him "information." He said the loyalty level of people serving the president is "rather low."

"I think if there were a different mutiny tomorrow, and FSB officers were called on to protect Putin from that mutiny, I reckon maybe only 30 percent would be ready to do that," Khodorkovsky said, referring to an advance on Moscow by the late Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who announced a "march of justice" against the country's military leadership on June 24.

In April, Khodorkovsky's investigative website Dossier Center, which tracks alleged criminal activity by various people associated with the Kremlin, published an interview with Gleb Karakulov, a defector of the Federal Guard Service, and a former protection officer for Putin.

"One defector [gave] us an interview, basically this is the person who was very close to Putin. He was the man who was supplying communications for Putin. He was walking around with a telephone line next to Putin all the time. He told us that the loyalty level of people serving Putin is rather low," Khodorkovsky said.

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