Federal Security Service
The FSB (ФСБ) is an organisation in Russia that takes care of security of the country.[1] It is the organisation that came after the KGB, relating to internal affairs inside the country. It is usually simply called the FSB in English-language sources.
Its main responsibilities are within the country. It does counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance.[2] It also investigates some other types of serious crimes. Its headquarters are in Lubyanka Square, Moscow's centre, in the main building of the former KGB. The Director of the FSB since 2008 is army general Aleksandr Bortnikov.
Federal Security Service Media
Future President of Russia and former KGB officer Vladimir Putin served as the FSB's director from 1998 to 1999
President Putin meeting with Director of FSB Nikolai Patrushev on 9 August 2000
FSB special forces members during a special operation in Makhachkala, as a result of which "one fighter was killed and two terrorist attacks prevented" in 2010
President Dmitry Medvedev meeting with FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov in June 2009
FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov played a key role in Putin's decision to invade Ukraine in 2022.
Putin, Bortnikov and members of the Security Council on 21 February 2022. That day, Putin said he would recognise the separatist-held territories in Donbas as independent states.
FSB officers on the scene of the Domodedovo International Airport bombing in 2011. Combating terrorism is one of the main tasks of the agency.
Border guards of the Federal Security Service pursuing trespassers of the maritime boundary during exercises in Kaliningrad Oblast
The FSB headquarters at Lubyanka Square
Notes
Other websites
- Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, official homepage in Russian
- Poison pins, rocks and fake logs: the secret arsenal of a long, silent war by Jeremy Page, The Times, March 02, 2006