On February 24, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the FSB board meeting, which, translated from Kremlin language to human language, means: the security apparatus received a carte blanche to suppress any dissent ahead of the Duma elections in September. This was reported by the Foreign Intelligence Service, according to UNN.
Details
As noted by intelligence, formally it was about internal security, countering terrorism, and the machinations of Ukrainian special services. However, the central episode was that Putin personally tasked the FSB with ensuring the "sovereignty" of the electoral process in the upcoming elections – a euphemism for a system in which the result is known before voting begins.
Putin traditionally attributed the increase in "terrorist-related crimes" to Kyiv and its "foreign handlers" – a formulation so universal that it covers any inconvenient incident on the territory of the Russian Federation. On this foundation, he announced the expansion of the agency's powers and the deepening of its coordination with the Ministry of Defense, Rosgvardia, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs – that is, the merging of all instruments of coercion into a single fist.
Separately, cyber threats, sanctions pressure, and the misuse of state defense order funds were mentioned – a set that eloquently speaks about the state of the country's economy, which has been financing its own exhaustion for the fifth year.
The "fortress under siege" narrative, which Putin has been exploiting for two decades, was brought to its logical conclusion in this speech: an external enemy, an internal traitor, and elections that need to be "protected" – and first and foremost from the voters themselves, the intelligence service summarized.