Putin’s Survival Machine | Sean Wiswesser

[00:00:00] Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords. This is Secrets and Spies. Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism,

[00:00:24] geopolitics, and intrigue. This episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr. Hello everyone and welcome back to Secrets and Spies. Every few months the same story comes around, a loyalist is arrested, a senior official disappears, the rest of the internet gets one more crackdown and Putin looks a little grayer, a little more dejected at another lackluster victory day parade. And every few months the same conclusion follows close behind, that this at last might be

[00:00:52] the beginning of the end for him. My guest today has spent his career watching Russia up close, and his answer to all of it is blunt, don't fall for it. In a recent piece for foreign policy he argues that after 25 years in power, Putin has built a system engineered precisely to survive rumors, dissent, and intrigue. And that many of the cracks we think we're seeing are the machine working as designed, not breaking down. So today we take that skepticism and go underneath it. How Putin's

[00:01:19] survival machine is actually built, where it could break, and what happens the morning Putin is finally gone, naturally or otherwise. Here to walk us through it is a former CIA officer who spent decades running operations against Russia, and the author of Tradecraft Tactics and Dirty Tricks, Russian intelligence and Putin's secret war, Sean Wiswester. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Take care. The opinions expressed by guests on Secrets and Spies do not necessarily represent those of the

[00:01:48] producers and sponsors of this podcast. Sean Wiswester, welcome back on Secrets and Spies. It's good to have you on again with me this time. Well, great to meet you, Matt. I had a great interview with Chris a few months back when the book was just getting launched and had many compliments,

[00:02:18] and folks enjoyed it. I always consider it one of the very best interviews I've had on the Tradecraft side of the book. So I know you and I will strive for the same today. Appreciate it. Thank you. Chris You've done a ton of press in the past few months for your book, I have it here, Tradecraft Tactics and Dirty Tricks from the US Naval Institute Press. Great outlet, really great book, just breaking down the nuts and bolts, the sticks and bricks, as you say,

[00:02:46] of Russian intelligence services. So this is sort of a companion to that earlier interview with Chris, but talking more about Putin's regime itself and sort of why it endures, how it endures, the sort of structure that ensures that and sort of inspired by a piece you had in foreign policy back

[00:03:11] in May. It was called Don't Fall for Rumors of Putin's Weakness. And I sort of wanted to unpack that. There's a whole cottage industry of commentary that looks at, you know, when battlefield fortunes for Ukraine change or there's, you know, rumors of some sort of defection or discontent with inside Putin's inner circle. There's always this sort of rumor mill that picks up that, you know,

[00:03:38] that Putin's on his way out. And your piece sort of, I think, smartly pours cold water on that a bit. So I wanted to unpack it more. Chris Great, Matt. I'm happy to dive in. You know, appreciate you mentioning the book. It's been selling well. It's been a bestseller for three months now. We're in our second reprint with Naval Institute Press. Hope your listeners will consider it. I should give my standard disclaimer. CIA asked us to say, my views are mine alone. Don't represent the views of CIA nor the US government. And with that, there's been a lot

[00:04:07] of rumors in recent months, getting more and more attention literally week by week. Oh, Putin's weak. You know, Russia's about to collapse. I wish as much as anyone that it was true. I really do. I hope for that. It's a despotic regime. It's committed war crimes in Ukraine, not just Ukraine. They're horribly repressive, the Russian people. But of course, these all go hand in hand, Matt. You know, the coercive regime, the repression at home that I touch on in my book and other writings to the

[00:04:35] piece you mentioned from Foreign Policy Magazine. Putin's been at this 26 years and he's following a blueprint that goes back 100 years. You know, he models himself off Stalin. There's a new reverence in Russia for Stalin. You know, Stalin was very good at keeping folks guessing and holding on to power for as long as he did. He still has a little bit of a lead on Putin. Still, I think, a couple years. And only Catherine the Great and Joseph Stalin have ruled Russia for longer now than Vladimir Putin.

[00:05:04] So yeah, I think that there's a lot to dive into here. But yeah, I don't believe in all the coup rumors and the talk about, oh, he's weaker than ever. Unfortunately, I don't see that. And we can talk about the various aspects that go along with all these rumors. You've made the point that the people forever watching for cracks in Putin's regime sort of keep misreading him, that they don't understand the system that he actually built. So start us there.

[00:05:29] When an outside observer sees a loyalist arrested or an official vanish from the Kremlin's inner circle and calls it a crack in the regime, what's the single most important thing that they're getting wrong? Yeah, well, I have a piece coming out on this in the next week. Hopefully, it'll be out with the cipher brief or potentially another platform, hopefully within next week. I talk about we shouldn't confuse elite infighting within the Kremlin's inner circle,

[00:05:55] in and among those sila viki posturing for power. We should never mistake that for weakness on the part of Putin and the regime writ large. You know, this is a vast security run state and not just security services like we think of them in the West, but this is a mafia-like state. The security services are like giant mafia clans and they're deeply embedded with the regime. They're completely

[00:06:18] beholden to Putin. You know, 400,000 strong FSB, including 200,000 border guard troops. 300,000 is the estimate of Raskwardia, those elite internal ministry elements that Putin took out of the interior ministry in 2016. Elite units like the Zhezczynski division that protect him, the various Kremlin guard units. He made them a separate organization called Raskwardia, basically their national guard. And who

[00:06:43] do they report to? Zolotov, a KGB hardliner that Putin goes back decades with. And then you have the Federal Protective Service, the FSO, probably 30,000 bodyguards completely beholden to Putin. So it's a layered, it's a layered security structure. Matt, I think this is lost on all this talk about, oh, well, maybe Putin will just be overthrown by elements, you know, beneath or around him. Who? Who exactly is that going to be that's going to pull this off? You know, these regime elements I just

[00:07:12] mentioned, again, they rely on Putin for all of their, literally their golden palaces. Those Syloviki, those strong men or men of power in Russian, what Syloviki means, you know, they all go back decades with Putin. So when they're posturing with and among each other for more power and more influence, again, go back to the Stalin's playbook. This is what he did. This is the old dictator's one-on-one playbook. You know, they all are nervous. You know, where's my standing with the boss man? Am I number one or am I number two behind him? And he jostles them. He likes to move

[00:07:41] them around like chess pieces. And Putin's a master at it. He's been at this for 26 years. Where are the popular protests right now in Russia? There are none, Matt. The last significant protests in Russia were about 2012. You know, 15, 14, 15 years ago. You don't see popular uprisings right now. You do hear chatter at times. Oh, there's discontent on this or that blog. And I mentioned that in my book, the Russian blogosphere, some of the only freedom of press left.

[00:08:08] Yeah. You hear that some of the youth are upset on Telegram. But those are the foundational points I point to to say, I don't see this large scale uprising coming. I don't see, unfortunately, a foundation to overthrow Putin's reign. Just don't see it happening. Walk us through sort of that design logic of that sort of coup proofing. Because as you said, it isn't sort of just one apparatus. It's like three sort of connecting circles. There's the FSB, the National Guard that you mentioned, and the FSO. So let's get a bit deeper into that,

[00:08:36] those institutions and how they keep the lid on this system. Yeah. Well, let's look at their heritage and their history. Where do they come from? The FSB, it's the old remnants of the KGB. All of it pretty much except the first chief director, which was the foreign intelligence, which went to the SVR. They still call themselves, you know, they use those old terms. A Pagyuchnik, a first chief director, an officer is this SVR officer today. But most of the rest of the main directors of the KGB, including the second chief

[00:09:05] director in charge of counterintelligence, the seventh director at surveillance, all of these came to into the current model of bureaucracy that's the FSB. And much more, cyber operations, Cyber Center, Cyber Center 16 in charge of surveilling the Russian people and has a vast apparatus embedded at every internet service provider, every call center. It's a surveillance state, Matt. You know, shortly after coming to power, Putin instituted laws in the early

[00:09:33] 2000s. We weren't paying attention. Again, we had optimism over 20 years ago. There was a lot of optimism and from our leaders, our own President Bush and Blair in the UK. I'm not saying that they did anything wrong. There was reason for optimism. Maybe we can all get along now. Putin was very good at fooling the West and putting up a friendly face, but only for so long. Because by 2008, what was he doing? Invasion of Georgia. He gave that famous speech at the Munich Security Conference that he

[00:09:59] wanted to counter what he saw as the only superpower in the world, the United States. But what else was he doing? What I'm getting at? What else was he doing? He was laying foundational laws, giving the FSB access to all internet service providers, all phone companies with no warrants whatsoever. They have their officers embedded at those companies. So that was the start of complete repression and having the compromat, the compromising material on anybody that would counter him. Remember how Putin came in. Remember that the compromise that Yeltsin thought

[00:10:26] was he would take this relatively unknown, literally physically unimposing, short, you know, not physically intimidating looking at all. Nobody really knew who Putin was as FSB director. And he was director of the FSB after all. Yeltsin elevated him to prime minister on his way out. And then he became acting president before elections confirmed him as president. But Yeltsin's bet was that this former director of the FSB, he already has the goods on a lot of folks.

[00:10:55] Those oligarchs, folks like Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, all of them thought they could outmaneuver Putin. All of them thought, well, this guy's going to do what we want. He outmaneuvered all of them. He threw them in jail. He exiled them, kicked them out of Russia when they didn't fall in line. And he even made jokes about it. He made a joke back in 2000. Mark Kelton wrote an excellent piece about Putin's succession, the reality and what's not a reality in the cipher brief this week. Mark mentioned Putin's joke from around 2000 when he said, the FSB has pulled off a fantastic

[00:11:24] operation, putting his people undercover and in control of an entire government. Mark Kelton Yeah, it was a little bit of Freudian slip, right? He shouldn't have said that. That's exactly what he pulled off. He pulled off a giant operation to take over the entire country. And so, yeah, I think that we underestimate the degree to which Putin understands machinations of power in Russia. Who's calling the shots? He overturned one system with the corrupt oligarchs that were in bed with Yeltsin. He overthrew that.

[00:11:54] He made it now a new type of kleptocracy where the security services are in charge. Mark Kelton The death of Muammar Gaddafi was sort of a very big moment for Putin and his psyche in terms of how he insulates himself. I mean, I think the nature of Gaddafi's death was really disturbing to him, that sort of like personally ripped apart by a mob beside a highway. That had a great impact on him. Mark Kelton Not just Gaddafi, though. You know,

[00:12:22] I touch on with my writings and research, you know, the rise of Russian doctrine of hybrid war. Mark Kelton What were they trying to counter, Matt? They were trying to counter Putin's understanding and the Sylvikis understanding that those color revolutions were all carried out by the CIA. Mark Kelton Now, wouldn't I love it if my old agency, if we could have taken credit for that? But we can't. And we didn't. Fundamentally, these were democratic revolutions, you know? After all, if there was any evidence of that,

[00:12:50] don't we think, but 20 years by now it would have come out. Somebody would have written a great book because we don't keep good secrets in the West. And I talk about that as well in my book, as you know. The Russians are good at compartmentation, keeping secrets. So Putin could not accept fundamentally that their democratic revolutions took place in Ukraine, in Kyrgyzstan, and Georgia. Mark Kelton And so he fundamentally rejects the idea that those were democratic uprisings. He believes it was the West, it was NATO out to get him and to overthrow Russia. And so along with

[00:13:19] Qaddafi, you know, an even greater or equal danger that Putin sees and the Sylviki have always seen is this idea that the West and NGOs and freedom supporting organizations, they could infiltrate Russia and overthrow him as democratic uprisings did with the corrupt dictator that Yanukovych was in Ukraine. Fundamentally, a democracy and a democracy aligned with Europe. Putin couldn't stand for that with Ukraine. That's why he decided he had to invade in 2022. All those measures Ukraine was getting,

[00:13:48] taking to get closer to the EU, that's what it was really all about. And the fact that Putin believed fundamentally Ukraine has no right to exist. The Baltics are no different, by the way. So I think it's all tied into his sense of being, you know, Putin's origin story. Remember, Matt, what does it all go back to? Putin's huge grievance was the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. His quote, you know, forget about World War II where they lost 25 million Soviet people. His own family suffered horribly. His brother died in

[00:14:16] the war of starvation is the story. His mother almost died. But no, Putin doesn't refer to World War II, the great patriotic war, which he likes to, otherwise he always draws attention to. He likes to invoke it frequently with Ukraine. But no, 25 million people lost. That wasn't the greatest tragedy. The greatest tragedy, geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, according to Putin, was the collapse of the Soviet Union. These republics deciding to be independent from Russia, they have no right to do that. So I think it's all tied together with his insecurities, his worldview.

[00:14:45] You also make this point in your foreign policy piece. There's sort of a line between a politician, an autocrat who sort of learns repression on the job and an officer who came up inside the machine as part of that autocratic machine. It's sort of instinctual to Putin where it's not to other autocrats. Yeah, he believes, Putin believes deeply in the idea that he and the KGB elites,

[00:15:10] the way they were in Soviet times, they should be now and even more so. At least in Soviet times, Matt, the KGB answered. They were the sword and shield as they were known. Their emblem, their shows, and there's a sword of the shield of the Communist Party. They answered to the bullet beer, ultimately. They answered to the general secretary. Not so today, because Putin's one of them. They're him. He considers himself part of them. How do they refer to him? I mentioned this in my writings as well. They call him chef in Russian, chief, the chief, the boss. You know, Stalin was

[00:15:40] referred to in his time also as the boss. They often used, inner circle used the term Kazayan, you know, the master, like the Kazayan of a collective farm. He's the boss man. He's in charge. Those closest to Stalin called him Kolba after a Georgian Robin Hood style figure from the revolution, but only those that were super close. Others called him, yeah, Kazayan. Putin's called chef. Okay, he's the chief. He's the boss. He's the head of the mafia clan and everybody knows it. And that's the way that intelligence officers I worked through throughout my career, deep brief,

[00:16:10] they'd say, oh, well, you talking about the chef? He's the boss. That's what we call him. He's in charge. So it fits this idea. I talk about it in some of my writing and some of the pieces I've written for Cipher Brief and elsewhere. You know, the Russians have a fundamental deep-seated belief in the idea of a wuzht in Russian, a great leader. The closest equivalent in German, it's Führer, or the concept of a khan. Russians also use the word konstova. You know, it's this idea of this

[00:16:39] all-encompassing, all-ruling leader, like the czar from olden times. There's a great book came out recently. I haven't been able to read it yet, but I read a review of it. There's a Dutch writer, I believe, talking about all the allusions to monarchy under Putin. And surprisingly, the statistic I heard from, it's in his speeches over the past 20, 25 years, Putin has given thousands and thousands of

[00:17:02] references to autocratic figures, not just the czar, but Stalin. He's re-erected statues all over Russia into the czars. So he wants to, he wants the Russian people to believe again. Let him decide. Democracy's not needed. The all-encompassing leader, he's got your back. Let him make the decisions. And Russians, I believe, fundamentally have come to believe this. Out in the villages, out in the regions, what they call the provincia in Russian. They still use the term from Russian

[00:17:28] czarist times. You have to understand again, their mentality. Russians, if you're not living in St. Petersburg or Moscow, they talk about the provincia. Oh, such and such is from the provinces. It's the idea that, oh, well, we don't know any better out here in the provinces. Better trust the boss man to run the show. There's this sort of this system of loyalty, this perception of loyalty, I guess. And that's sort of, that's tightly manufactured by Putin himself and uses,

[00:17:57] there's the example of the assassin who was arrested in Germany, Krasikov, and how he, you know, perpetuates this system of loyalty within his officers. Yeah. I try to mention, you know, in a lot of my lectures, media appearances, you know, I give the Krasikov example because it's very telling, Matt. You know, here was a blood, a blood thirsty killer, had literally blood on his hands when he went to Germany in 2019.

[00:18:24] Vadim Krasikov, former FSB officer, later a bodyguard, personal bodyguard of Putin. And I think much like that mafia culture I talked about, they were probably sitting around one night at dinner. Krasikov probably said, yeah, boss, let me take care of this problem of this Chechen dissident in Germany. I want to do that for you. I want to personally volunteer. And he did. He went abroad. He killed the Chechen dissident. In broad daylight, the Germans captured him immediately.

[00:18:50] Denied he was affiliated with Russia at all. No, nothing to do. He was caught red-handed. Couldn't really too well get out of it. You know, they had all the usual evidence, just tracking him by camera and all that. So when Putin got around to swapping hostages, innocent civilians like Brittany Greiner and Evan Gershkovic, the Wall Street Journal reporter, unfortunately, I think it's a horrible mistake we got into, but we kind of didn't get it, have a choice in the West. We started trading these

[00:19:13] civilian hostages. What did Putin insist on? I want Krasikov. And why? Why was it important to get Krasikov out, Matt? This has to do with, again, we want quick and easy answers. And a lot of this isn't quick and easy. We have to understand how they think. And Russians say, what does he breathe? How does Putin think? These are his guys. These are his mafia captains. Got to get Krasikov out. So all the negotiators knew, and it's been reported on, nothing was going to happen without Krasikov.

[00:19:40] Krasikov. And when he was swapped and met at the airport, Putin literally came up to him first, gave him a firm handshake, half bearer hug on the tarmac. One of the whole world to say, this is my guy. And then within days, the Russians acknowledged what we knew. Peskov, the spokesperson said, yeah, he's a decorated FSB officer and we're glad to have him back on. Putin needed to show the regime hardliners, the guys that he stands by in the services. You know, if you kill for me, you follow my orders. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to get you out. And he did. He took care of

[00:20:09] them. So I think that's a supreme example of the thug culture, the thugocracy, as I like to call it, of Putin's government. A president meeting a bloodthirsty killer on the tarmac of Moscow airport when he flew back and showing the whole world, yeah, I told him to kill. I'm making it clear. In fact, they decorated him. Let's take a break and we'll be right back.

[00:20:43] Yevgeny Prigozian's mutiny in June 2023 is the only time in this sort of 25, 26 year history where the machine was really tested from within or seemed to be. Your read, of course, is that it revealed strength, not hollowness. You call it patience followed by punishment. Plenty of serious people, though, watched Wagner's forces take Rostov, then drive most of the way to Moscow, essentially

[00:21:10] unopposed or largely unopposed for the distance that they covered and saw a regime that blinked, if only temporarily. But what did that day actually reveal, do you think? Yeah, I think, again, we don't we fail to understand the Russian society, the interaction between the intelligence services and the military in particular, you know, and I've been published on these subjects. My thesis from Air War College, I graduated several

[00:21:37] years back, was published in the UK's journal Small Wars on Russian air power. I continue to write and publish on military issues as well. We have to remember in the Russian system, Matt, the intelligence services are second to none. The military are enablers, okay? It's the Russian intelligence services and those Syloviki are running the country. Let's talk about the Prigozian mutiny. Again, I touch on this in my piece I have coming out because we just, we just had the third year's

[00:22:05] anniversary of that mutiny that literally, you know, shook up the world and a lot of folks' understanding of Russia. But fundamentally, let's talk about what it was and what it wasn't. What was Prigozian upset about? Again, most in the West weren't paying attention that for months before that, close Russia watchers were, Prigozian was complaining very adamantly in the media. He was shouting literally on Russian media, Shagul, Gerasimov. That was his famous shouts. And he would cuss at them using very vulgar, guttural language.

[00:22:33] It's the defense minister and the chief of the general staff. Yeah, exactly. Shagul and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the staff, shouting literally on Russian press for weeks and even months saying, where the hell, where the blank, blank is my ammunition? My people are dying at the front because they're not getting ammunition. And I believe him. I watched him saying that. I believe him because that's the Russian system. It's corruption, right? Those colonels are selling that ammunition to the highest bill within the Russian, you know, defense ministry and the war. That just happens in Russia. So I believe his troops

[00:23:03] probably were dying for lack of ammunition. So he had had it. He was fed up. Why was he marching on Moscow? He wasn't fundamentally ever trying to overturn Putin's system, Putin personally, or the system he set up. This was elite infighting. And we should never mistake elite infighting, Matt, as I said at the start of our chat today. Let's never mistake infighting among the elites under Putin for a real threat to Putin himself, because that wasn't what Prigozian was about. He had no chance of that. And he knew it. And that's why he stopped short of Moscow. What he did do

[00:23:33] is he shook up, he shook up Russia and he shook up the world from the standpoint, nobody thought he would get as close to Moscow as he did. But he went through what were defense ministry units he had fought with in Ukraine. Generals that absent the broken command structure within the military, not the intelligence services, they knew who they were loyal to. They knew what they were going to do if he got close to Moscow. They'd call out those Ruskvordia units, 300,000 strong with heavy weapons

[00:23:59] who've only been reinforced since then, by the way, only been given more weapons. But they didn't come into play. They went through favorable units that had fought with Wagner in Rostov Oblast. I studied once in Rostov on the Don in southern Russia, which is the southern headquarters for the war right now. He went and met at the military headquarters there sort of at a pit stop. Well, those generals, they didn't have orders to kill him or to take out the mutiny, not initially. So they just kind of let him go because they don't want to be hung on a short noose afterwards. So Purgosin continued

[00:24:28] marching towards Moscow. And when he got within a few hundred kilometers, what did he do? He stopped. Okay. He stopped because he knew very well, what am I going to do? Take on 300,000 strong of the Russian National Guard, Ruskvordia, with my 30,000 troops? Am I going to take on the 400,000 of the FSB, including 200,000 border troops they'll call on if they need to? Used to be considered the elite of the KGB. Who knows if they are any longer, but it's still a lot of troops.

[00:24:55] Am I going to take on Alpha, Vimple, and the other three special operations teams of the FSB, known for assassinations and wet work, personal loyalty to Putin? And by the way, what about the other 30,000 of the FSO? Again, layered structure, Matt. Purgosin knew he had no chance. So he laid down his arms. Within days, all of his captains were required to swear loyalty to Putin. And let's break this down a little bit too. Talk about patience before punishment.

[00:25:22] Putin called all those commanders to the Kremlin. People forget about this meeting. You had FSB and FSO bodyguards standing around the room. You had the captains sitting there, not with Purgosin and not with his immediate leadership. All of them were sitting there. Putin comes into the room. I looked at those bodyguards. Everybody's looking at the Wagner folks. I looked at those bodyguards, man. They're ready to act in a second. Literally, some of them had arms, had their hands on their MP, probably some machine guns. Because remember, this is taped.

[00:25:49] If they needed to, they'd wipe out anybody that they needed to that spoke up. So Putin gave a short speech, said, thank you for your loyalty. Thank you for committing to your loyalty to the Russian Federation. I appreciate you coming on showing that here today. Purgosin's gone. He's out of sight. Some of his men are supposedly, oh, they're going to settle in Belarus, which never really happened. Within a few months, his plane falls out of the sky. This also makes Putin look a lot stronger. Just

[00:26:13] like the Caesars of old, Matt, he can temporarily pardon someone. What does the crowd say? Thumbs up or thumbs down? Putin can say, I pardon you, Purgosin. And then, oh, your plane fell out of the sky. How unfortunate for you. It makes him look even more powerful, right? And then since then, since 2016, what did he do? He's only strengthened the Rusk Guardia, given them more heavy weapons. They get things first. And the system that he's built, the GRU, Spetsnaz units, they get their stuff

[00:26:43] first. We didn't even talk about them if they needed to be called on to put down the mutiny as well. So there's a fundamental misunderstanding by a lot of folks who are not practitioners of things Russia, who don't understand the Russian system, who don't understand how Putin's layered his security, that like to talk about the Purgosin mutiny. Oh, see how close he got to Moscow? Geographically close has nothing to do with whether he was close to overturning the regime. He never intended to. He really didn't.

[00:27:09] Yeah. You raise an interesting possibility in your foreign policy piece that Putin and the security services may be behind some of the dissent rumors themselves, that the arrests, the purges, the whispered defections aren't cracks at all, but manufactured uncertainty, a way to like justify tightening the screws. Another old move of Stalin's essentially. But from the outside,

[00:27:34] it's a theory that's almost unfalsifiable. I mean, any sign of weakness can be reread as manufactured strength after the fact. How would you actually tell the difference? Like what's the hint that separates a staged fracture from the real thing? You know, listen, what's happening right now, a lot of writers have pointed this out, a lot of really smart experts that I also listened to and are paying attention. Things are different now than

[00:27:57] they were in 2022. The war is not going Putin's way. I think he knows it deep down. I think he knows, but he also doesn't have any reason to change policy. So putting that aside, we can talk about the war more. But what I look for, Matt, are fundamental signs, mass demonstrations, protests. Somebody countered me recently. I said this and somebody pointed out, some tried to. Oh,

[00:28:26] nobody saw the 1917 revolution coming. Oh, excuse me. There were mass protests happening all over Russia. There were troops that were increasingly walking away from the front lines. Yes, true. The revolutionaries themselves were outside of Russia for the most part. They didn't think it would happen that quickly. But there were mass protests. There was starvation. There were peasants saying, enough, you know, my gosh, four years of war, you know, three going on four years of war. We can't stand for this. There was a saying from Pasternak's novel, Dr. Zhivago, you know, there was that saying

[00:28:55] of Zhivago's cousin who's in the security services says, oh, the war will last as long. We felt the war would last as long as the Russians, peasants' boots. Well, two and three years into the war is boots that evaporated. He had nothing on his feet and the peasant was still fighting. Why is this important? We can't underestimate the ability of the Russian people to take suffering, Matt. Right. Okay. They've shown it throughout their history. Just reference World War II, World War I. Look

[00:29:23] at World War II. Lost tens of millions of their people. Horrible suffering the Germans inflicted on the Soviet population. They still triumph. Putin is calling on a lot of this now. He makes references all the time to World War II, trying to remind the Russian people we're going to have to suffer horribly. Remember, it's not the youth of St. Petersburg and Moscow that are suffering, though. It's out in Siberia. It's out in the provinces. And so I don't see any mass protests, though, Matt. Fundamentally, I don't see signs that the Russian people are ready to go out and start marching on

[00:29:53] the streets and overthrowing him. I don't see a weakness in the security structure. I don't. Those are the things I would look for. I look for not intellectuals occasionally disagreeing with him, which is reported in the press. Oh, this or that long-term supporter, intellectual, is now disagreeing with Putin. Remember, he's largely wiped out the intelligentsia. In the past 25 years, they're exiled or reporters, journalists, heroic journalists like Anna Polotkovska. She was

[00:30:19] killed. She was murdered. So those are the signs I would look for, Matt. And I just don't see them in society. And I think that we tend to underestimate in the West, too. We hear 1.5 million casualties. We underestimate the ability of the Russian people to endure suffering, okay? Unfortunately, unfortunately, they can take suffering. They've shown it time and time again in history. And Putin knows that, too. Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to sort of make that distinction between

[00:30:45] what we in the West and the U.S. are able to suffer. You know, gas gets over $4 a gallon for a couple weeks. And people get shaky. People get antsy. Completely different story over there. Yeah. No, we're ready for mass protests, right? Matt, Americans can't stand it. Oh, my gosh, $4 a gallon. You know, Russians, long lines leaving Crimea from their vacations does not translate to,

[00:31:09] I'm ready to go take the streets against the FSB. Not going to happen. Not in this current environment, not in this current context of overwhelming intimidation that the security services have in Russia. Matt, I wish to God I was wrong, but I just don't see it. Those are the signs I look for. Again, signs of mass protests, signs of weakness within the structures that matter. And that's not the military. That's the intelligence services. Let's take a break and we'll be right back.

[00:31:49] Hey, folks, real quick before we get back to the conversation with Sean, I just wanted to remind folks that right now Chris and I are running an audience survey. It's a couple of questions long. Really helpful, though, to help us understand you guys better, what you'd like to hear more of, what you'd like to hear less of, and how all around we can make a better show for you. So links to that survey are in the show notes of this episode. It's going to be up for a little

[00:32:15] while. So we definitely encourage everyone, if you have the time, click that link, answer those questions and give us some feedback. It's really helpful. And of course, the more information we get back, the better, the more useful it is. So thank you. All this writing on why he survives, why his regime endures, how he set it up to do this way, don't really touch on what happens when

[00:32:41] he eventually doesn't. Like one morning he's going to wake up dead, whether that's naturally or otherwise. And of course, what happens after that really depends entirely on how he wakes up dead that one morning, you know? But if we could speculate on that, picturing the morning after, you know, Putin dies in office, no designated successor, which he hasn't had to date,

[00:33:07] the machine you've just described still standing, what does that apparatus actually then do in the first hours? Yeah, great question, Matt. Great question. And again, we have to understand Russia for what it is, not project our, project intentionally our democratic experience on Russia. So I was at an event, um, Center for the National Interest hosted me for a lecture talk I gave. It was very well received. We're very smart audience. Asked really good questions. We had a lot of really good discussion.

[00:33:35] And this, this issue came up and I mentioned a piece I also wrote for the cipher brief several months back. I titled it after the war, after Putin, because there was talk of, as there's always been, there was ceasefire back in the spring. And here we go again. I said, well, a lot of Putin's legacy is tied into the war now. So what if he decides to step down? And so I laid out some scenarios. Hopefully your listeners can go check out that piece. Um, and I touched on it some in the foreign policy piece you're, you're, you're talking about now. Um, let's understand Russia for what it is.

[00:34:04] Who's in charge? The security services are in charge. Those rulings see, look, be key. During that, uh, talk I gave at the center for the national interest, somebody pointed out, Hey, wait a second. No, if Putin dies, the prime minister, uh, Mishustin is in charge. He immediately takes over as acting president. No, he doesn't. Okay. He's not in charge. Yeah. Yeah. On paper. He doesn't matter. He really doesn't. Okay. Let me explain further. Okay. So when, um, uh,

[00:34:29] when, when Putin, you know, Sergei Ivanov just passed away. Putin was very close to Ivanov for many years, rose up from the KGB with him, went along with him. Kremlin chief of staff, basically. Yeah. Chief of staff was minister of defense at one time seen as a possible successor. When he got a little too close and folks mentioned him as a possible successor, what did Putin do? He pushed him aside, right? Medvedev became the prime minister because Medvedev was no challenge

[00:34:54] to Putin. In a similar way, the current prime minister, Mishustin is not a, is not a, uh, rival to Putin in any way. And he's not a rival to Alexander Bordnikov, the head of the FSB. It's not a rival to Naryshkin head of the SBR, uh, nor any of the other Sylviki like Zolotov who said, I can tell you from my experience, what I believe would happen much like when Stalin passed, you know, and, and there was no name successor. If there isn't a name successor, if Putin hasn't made it clear what, what he

[00:35:22] wants done, they're going to get together and meet. And the current prime ministers may not even be invited, Matt. He's just a figurehead. He's just somebody that people in the West can say now, according to the constitution and CNN, we'll be talking about according to the constitution right now, prime minister Mishustin is in charge. He's now the acting president. Well, Bordnikov, Naryshkin, Zolotov, Igor Sietchen, head of Rasneft. These are the real Sylviki that matter. And they're the ones that are going to sit around and say, all right, we know what the boss talked

[00:35:52] about, some folks he was close to. What's really going to be on their mind though, Matt, who will sustain the system that they are in charge of, that their wealth is beholden to, that all of their golden palaces on the Black Sea and elsewhere that they've constructed for 25 years, who's going to ensure that? Much like Yeltsin looked to Putin to say, I want him to ensure my family won't be touched. These Sylviki are going to put somebody in charge that they believe is going to

[00:36:18] protect their interests. I think it's somebody like Patrushev's son. So Nikolai Patrushev's son, I think it's Dmitry Patrushev. He is a deputy prime minister right now. He's the son literally of one of the closest Sylviki, also a KGB officer, hardliner that Putin has been close to for decades. It's going to be someone like that. But that's how it'll unfold. While we in the West are paying attention to projecting our constitutional law-based society in Russia, it's going to be the

[00:36:48] Sylviki saying, hey, FSB, you got your units ready to go. You got Alpha and Vimple ready to act in case we need to arrest somebody. Raskvardia, you call out the Dzerzhinsky division, get them ready to go. We want them on the streets. They're going to be the ones calling the shots because they've got the guns, literally, Matt. They're in charge. In a way, that's sort of the scenario you're outlining kind of repeats the cycle that Yeltsin began when he appointed Putin. You're sort of

[00:37:14] getting someone down and started the lower mid-level of the security services, elevating them to this position to kind of keep stability and control. Yeah. You know, Matt, I mentioned in my piece for a few months back, I mentioned, you know, the immediate power probably will go into the hands of somebody like Bortnikov, head of the FSB. I had mentioned Ivanov, too. He's gone now. But Patrushev, in terms of calling the day-to-day shots, keeping things going. And they'll be telling the prime minister, whoever that is.

[00:37:41] Yeah. Here's what you do. We want you to get on TV and say this. You think he's going to argue with them? No. He's watched too for decades. Those are the guys in charge. And then they're going to anoint some success or the prime minister himself may say, I'm stepping down or I'm holding elections now. And we want to do what Vladimir Putin wanted us to do. And so we're going to hold elections. And then the handpicked Syloviki candidate is going to come forward. And so unfortunately,

[00:38:09] I think that there's far too many interests. I always point this out, too. Remember the FSB, the SVR, the GRU, their security services are not just services. Matt, they are not the equivalent of FBI or CIA. These are vast monolith corporations in Russia, a lot of power, billions and billions of dollars. And when we have one administration or another change in the United States or in the UK or in democracies in the West, those folks change hands, too. Not so in Russia.

[00:38:36] But Bordnikov's been head of the FSB forever now, many, many years. Same with Naryshkin, head of the SVR. It's a real deep state, like the actual thing. Yeah. Yeah. This is literally the deepest of deep states you can have. So these folks are not just going to give up power. They're not going to step back and say, you know what? Yeah, I guess these next elections will be the first real ones we've had in the past 26 years. No, they're going to keep running things the way they always have. And they also have, not to be underestimated, Matt, one thing that we also don't pay attention to. I included it in my piece that I hope is coming

[00:39:05] out in the next week. It'll be very timely with our discussion you and I had today. I point out with that preglozian anniversary, let's not forget when Russia, you have the, I believe the greatest propaganda state to the greatest propaganda machinery set up since Dr. Goebbels time in Nazi Germany, except now the FSB and the services in Russia, they have all of the things that Goebbels never had can complete control of all media, complete control of the internet, complete control of

[00:39:33] everyone's phone in Russia is literally a personal beacon that the FSB can tap into at any point. And so you have that ability and even things like Telegram that they don't have full and complete control of, look at what they're doing. They're acting to take it over entirely or shut it down. So they have that benefit too, if anything unexpected would happen to Putin, complete control of all press and all media in Russia. As we wrap up here, there's one more kind of thought I wanted to put into play here.

[00:40:02] Reading your book, Tradecraft, alongside this foreign policy piece and your other writings and stuff touch on this as well, something sort of clicked. And I think the book does a really good job showing these intelligence services that are genuinely good at the patient disciplined work of an intelligence service that's running agents, compartmentalizing these cases, the sort of the

[00:40:25] long game of gathering intelligence. But that operates inside a culture willing to tolerate real recklessness abroad, which you've touched on as well. These sloppy hits, the operations that generate blowback, the failures that the system seems to absorb and just sort of move past. And you're writing, however, on this sort of coup-proofing apparatus around Putin describes

[00:40:55] a system that's almost sort of airtight by design. Same services, same culture, but the discipline seems to scale with how close the stakes get to Putin himself, like his physical well-being. Is that sort of the pattern that the system is like exactly as careful as it needs to be and no more? And sort of the one thing it's never careless about is him and his role. You mentioned my book, you know, first chapter of my book, I talk about the organizations and

[00:41:23] their history and the history of the Czechist culture, Czechism in Russia, going back to the first committee for the defense of the revolution, Dzerzhinsky. Some folks have told me when they read the book, hey, Sean, I really liked it. You know, chapter two, though, and especially chapter three, when I talk about illegals, that's when the action really picks up. Okay. So for readers listening now, okay, jump ahead if you want. But why is that history so important? Why include chapter one? And I talk about in chapter two, that indoctrination, that corruption, how Russian officers are recruited

[00:41:52] into the services, how they're all beholden. There's so much nepotism that goes on. Um, it's important to understand that the very security state that they operate within, uh, Russia, remember that they don't answer to it by and large when they're in and doing their work within Russia, Matt. So SVR officers show the badge when they get into trouble, they're not, they're not

[00:42:15] responsible beholden to any laws. Okay. When they go abroad, the services have plenty competent enough training. I touch on that again in chapter two at their academies. Um, but there's no accountability fundamentally for a lot of their failures abroad. There are failed intelligence operations, failed prognostications by the FSB in particular on the Ukraine war. Matt, there was no accountability and there never will be. We're four years into this war. Didn't go at all. Like Russia thought it would. The military was sort of told again, they were enablers. Hey,

[00:42:44] you're supposed to go, you're going to go in, uh, you know, quick week long war. You'll achieve some air superiority, which they couldn't do at all. They'll just march on Kiev. So none of that played out like the way the FSB prognosticated. And they were the ones in charge of operational analysis for the president. They control his briefings, by the way, who gets to see him, what intelligence they bring to him. That's all the operational analytical fifth service

[00:43:06] of the FSB. Why is this so important, Matt? Um, you know, fundamentally, um, I think that, uh, when you don't have any accountability, you can't do anything wrong. Your mistakes will compound naturally. Right. Um, so they can afford to make mistakes abroad. They can afford incompetence screwing up. And we've seen that in Ukraine as well, but they're going to be reconstituted. GRU Spetsnaz brigades in the Ukraine war were largely wiped out within the first couple of years

[00:43:34] of the war, Matt. They have 10 ground brigades and four Marine brigades. They took heavy, heavy casualties. It's been reported on an open press 70, 60, 70% casualties in these massive frontal attacks where they were meant to plug frontline contract and key and also conscript units. So whether they were professional soldiers or conscripts, they were all incompetent. They weren't able to achieve their missions. Russia wasn't prepared for drone war. Neither was Ukraine initially, but both have adapted. The Ukrainians have adapted even better. They sent in GRU and elite

[00:44:03] units to try to plug gaps and they were wiped out, but Matt, they were reconstituted. They were given new, new, uh, equipment. They were given plenty of new troops, the very best. As this war has gone along. It's looked a lot like I'm a world war two historian. It's looked a lot how like how the Waffen SS also in the SS became the premier element within German society. Didn't start that way at the start of the war, the Wehrmacht matter at the start of this war. Maybe the Russian, uh,

[00:44:31] armed forces still mattered in the, in the structure and hierarchy. I found the money. I don't think so, but four years into the war, I can tell you they're, they're not calling the shots at all. They're done. They do exactly what they're told. And the intelligence services are calling the shots. Alexander Bordnikov is a, is the equivalent of a Colonel General of the Russian army. He has the uniform of it. Never served a single day in the Russian military. Why is that? Putin wants Grazmov to know, Hey, my guy Bordnikov, he don't answer to anybody. Okay. Including, including even the

[00:45:00] head of the chief of staff of the Russian military. You all answer to the FSB. You answer to the security services. So I think when you lack that accountability, Matt, you don't have any, you can do no wrong. It fundamentally makes the security services stronger, particularly in a time of war. They can strengthen their chokehold on the Russian people. And they have, unfortunately. Peter Robinson Putin's own personal endurance and, and survival has been sort of the core

[00:45:24] organizing principle of his regime for a quarter century now. Is that organizing principle transferable to someone who isn't him, someone after him? Um, that's one of the, uh, questions really hard to answer. Of course, if we don't know who it is, but, um, sometimes it happens, right? You know, I, I, I got to travel in my career at a lot of interesting locations, sometimes with CIA, sometimes the state department, I won't say when and where,

[00:45:50] but you know, one of my trips, I got to Turkmenistan one time where the Bashi was in charge. The Bashi had all those golden statues to him. And then literally like a week after the Bashi died, the statues were gone. The statues were being taken away or they were put up for the new Bashi. Um, I, I, I don't think so in the case of Putin, what I'd be inclined to say, Matt, is, you know, these, these 26 plus years now, um, he's seen as a hero to the Russian people. I wish it weren't.

[00:46:19] So I believe fundamentally he's corrupt. He's done much more harm to Russia than he's ever done good, but I do believe overwhelmingly, you know, um, he has the support of the Russian people. I wish he, I wish he didn't. I just fundamentally don't see what some want to write about that. Oh, he's losing his popularity. Oh, he's, he's desperate. Um, I believe he's reckless. I believe the security services are reckless, but unless we show a credible deterrent in the West, Matt, that's what determines whether he's reckless or not. Do we strike back? Do we hit back?

[00:46:48] Largely we haven't when we've been given chances to hit back where it matters most to Russia. We haven't, the Ukrainians have their crannies have held them to account. Um, I, I, I believe that fundamentally whoever takes and takes charge after Putin, whether he dies of natural causes or decides to step down, um, they better show loyalty and fealty to Putin, even in his death, or I don't think they're going to succeed in Russia again, wish it weren't. So, but that's, that's the way I think the propaganda machine has it set up now.

[00:47:15] Right. Kind of a Kim Il-sung kind of vibe he'll have in death. Well, who's there to counter them again, Matt, more than ever since 2022, all opposition has been wiped out. I use the analogy sometimes the Valkyrie plot in Germany that happened in, in 44. Thankfully, history shows some Germans who roquely stood up and tried to kill the Fuhrer. And it wasn't the first time there were other plots, the July plot in 44, but what did Hitler use it in the SS use

[00:47:41] it for? Himmler used it as a chance to wipe out all opposition that was left in any part of society, the monarchists, the deep seated allegiance in the military. In a similar way, Putin used the Bregosian mutiny and he's, and he's used four years of war now to consolidate power and any opposition has been completely stifled and, and, and, and, and choked out of existence. So who's left really to give an alternate version of history? That's my worry, Matt,

[00:48:10] who's left to tell the real story of what happened with the Ukraine war. Only we in the West can try to, can try to do so, put the pieces together. I've done my part, my small part. I tried to with my book, as you know, Matt. So. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, anything else you would, uh, like to touch on, uh, before we wrap up here, Sean? No, I think, listen, I appreciate the chance, Matt, to come on with you again. Hopefully your listeners will enjoy our speculating on these topics. I would just accentuate again. You know, my speculation though is founded on three decades of work in the intelligence community. And my experiences, as I touched on in my book,

[00:48:40] uh, Tradecraft Tactics and Dirty Tricks, Russian Intelligence and Putin's Secret War with Naval Institute. Thank you. It's a book founded on my experiences with Russian intelligence officers. The one thing that I do make a claim to, and, uh, and I'm honored by the endorsements the book's gotten so far, you know, I do know how they think. I know how Russian intelligence officers think. And unfortunately they're the ones in charge now. I wish that all the hopeful and wishful thinking

[00:49:05] about the Russia that we want to be and, and, and, and the Putin that we want to be overthrown. I wish that would come to the fore, Matt, but I just don't see it. I think we have to deal with the reality of who Putin is and what Russia is today if we're ever to counter them effectively. So that's what I, that's where I leave, leave things. Thank you again for having me, man. Thank you for all those insights. Of course, you're welcome back here. Uh, anytime there's stuff in your wheelhouse to, to discuss, um, we'll of course have links to, uh, the book in the show notes,

[00:49:34] the foreign policy piece. You mentioned your new upcoming piece on this. I don't know as you record, I'm not sure exactly when this will be out, but I do know that piece will be out. So when that's out, let me know and we'll put it, we'll put it, um, in the, in the show notes. But, um, yeah, pleasure as always to, to speak with you about this. Thank you, Matt. And thank you listeners for tuning in. These are important issues. I think they deserve more attention and more, uh, uh, more, more discussion and analysis in the West. I always

[00:50:01] say we can never have too much, can never have too many books, never have too many articles talking about what I consider our, um, most formidable adversaries, um, Russian intelligence services in particular. Thanks, Matt. Absolutely. Thank you.

[00:50:40] Thanks for listening. This is Secrets and Spies.