Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, also known as Platon Elenin, was a Russian business oligarch, government official, engineer and mathematician and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB. Its main responsibilities are within the country and include counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance as well as investigating some other types of serious crimes and federal law violations. It is headquartered in Lubyanka Square, Moscow's center, in the main building of the former KGB. According to the 1995 Federal Law "On the Federal Security Service", the director of the FSB is appointed by and directly answerable to the president of Russia.
The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War. Then-prime minister Vladimir Putin's handling of the crisis boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.
Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev is a Russian politician, security officer and intelligence officer. He served as Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is the main successor organization to the Soviet KGB, from 1999 to 2008, and he has been Secretary of the Security Council of Russia since 2008.
Chekism is a term to describe the situation in the Soviet Union where the secret police strongly controlled all spheres of society. It is also used by critics of the current Kremlin authorities to describe the power enjoyed by law-enforcement agencies in contemporary Russia.
On 7 October 2006, Russian journalist, writer and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow. She was known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and for criticism of Vladimir Putin. She authored several books about the Chechen wars, as well as Putin's Russia, and received numerous international awards for her work. Her murder, believed to be a contract killing, sparked a strong international reaction. Three Chechens were arrested for the murder, but were acquitted. The verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court of Russia and new trials were held. In total, six people were convicted of charges related to her death.
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised in tackling organized crime. A prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin he advised British intelligence and coined the term "Mafia state" to describe the Russian regime before he was murdered by radiation poisoning in 2006. Although Russia has refused to cooperate with investigations, it is considered extremely likely Putin personally ordered his assassination, as heard by a 2015 British inquiry into his death.
Yuri Petrovich Shchekochikhin was a Soviet and later Russian investigative journalist, writer, and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament. Shchekochikhin made his name writing about and campaigning against the influence of organized crime and corruption. His last non-fiction book, Slaves of the KGB, was about people who worked as KGB informers.
Andrei Alekseyevich Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist and Russian security services expert. Together with a journalist Irina Borogan he is a co-founder and editor of the Agentura.Ru website.
Yuri Georgievich Felshtinsky is a Russian American historian. Felshtinsky has authored a number of books on Russian history, including The Bolsheviks and the Left SRs, Towards a History of Our Isolation, The Failure of the World Revolution, Blowing up Russia, and The Age of Assassins.
Alexander Vasilyevich Bortnikov is a Russian official. He has been Director of the FSB since 12 May 2008. He belongs to the Siloviki of Putin's inner circle.
Yevgenia Markovna Albats is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, writer and radio host. As of 2011, she works as a chief editor of The New Times magazine.
Lubyanka Criminal Group is a book by Alexander Litvinenko about the alleged transformation of the Russian Security Services into a criminal and terrorist organization.
The poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, alternatively known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12, and Kamera, was a covert research-and-development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies. The laboratory manufactured and tested poisons and was reportedly reactivated in the late 1990s.
Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB is a book written by Alexander Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko about the life and death of her husband, former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned by the radioactive element polonium in London in November 2006.
Konstantin Georgiyevich Preobrazhenskiy is a former KGB lieutenant colonel, an intelligence expert and the author of several books and numerous articles about Russian secret police organizations.
Irina Borogan is a Russian investigative journalist.
Counterintelligence state is a state where the state security service penetrates and permeates all societal institutions, including the military. The term has been applied by historians and political commentators to the former Soviet Union, the former German Democratic Republic, Cuba after the 1959 revolution, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, China, and post-Soviet Russia under Vladimir Putin, especially since 2012.
Oleg Vladimirovich Syromolotov was Deputy Director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor of the Soviet-era KGB. He has headed the DKR, the organisation's counterintelligence branch. He was chief of security for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The Plot to Hack America: How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election is a non-fiction book by Malcolm Nance about what the author describes as Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It was published in paperback, audiobook, and e-book formats in 2016 by Skyhorse Publishing. A second edition was also published the same year, and a third edition in 2017. Nance researched Russian intelligence, working as a Russian interpreter and studying KGB history.
