- Vladimir Putin again increases the maximum number of employees of the Federal Protection Service.
- The headquarters of the Federal Protection Service will grow from 785 to 812 employees.
- Security around Putin is being tightened due to growing fears of an assassination attempt.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is strengthening the Federal Protective Service (FSO). This follows from the presidential decree published on the Russian portal of legal acts, which should enter into force on July 1. The Verstka portal informed about it, writes TASR.
This is already the fourth strengthening of the FSO since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The maximum number of employees in the FSO central office will increase from the current 785 to 812. Before the start of the war in Ukraine, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev did not strengthen the FSO for almost 13 years. The Presidential Decree on the FSO of August 7, 2004 set the maximum number of employees at the headquarters at 600.
The FSO is responsible for the protection of the country’s leaders, especially the president and prime minister, including their families. Sources familiar with the matter previously confirmed to the Financial Times (FT) a significant increase in security around Putin due to fears of an assassination and a coup attempt.
Putin’s fears intensified especially after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. According to the FT, he has since reduced his visits and people who meet him are being more heavily vetted. Putin and his family stopped visiting their residences in Moscow and Valdai. They spend a lot of time in bunkers, including one in the Krasnodar region, and state media releases pre-recorded videos to create the illusion of normalcy. writes the FT.
The FSO also strengthened the protection of 10 high-ranking representatives of the Ministry of Defense, including three deputies of the Chief of the General Staff Valeri Gerasimov. Until now, only he had such protection. This is probably a reaction to a series of Ukrainian assassinations of Russian generals.
The Moscow Times illustrated the strengthening of security measures by analyzing information from public sources (OSINT). According to her, during the official visit to Kazakhstan at the Eurasian Economic Forum in May, Putin’s motorcade was accompanied by an armored vehicle with a machine gun on the roof, a vehicle equipped with an electronic warfare system and a helicopter. There were 24 cars and 14 motorcycles in the convoy.
