Vladimir Putin has increased the number of staff at the central headquarters of Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) amid a string of high-profile killings and growing paranoia from the Russian president about threats against his life.
Putin signed a decree on Monday to expand FSO central office personnel from 785 to 812, The Moscow Times reported.
The move marks the fourth time staffing at Russia’s security agency—responsible for protecting Putin, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and a host of other top officials—has been increased since the invasion of Ukraine began four-and-a-half years ago. Before the war, the FSO’s central office had not been expanded for almost 13 years.
The decision comes as Putin has been confronted with a string of humiliating killings of high-ranking military officers, which the Kremlin has blamed on Ukraine.
This includes Sergei Sechkov, an officer in Russia’s 332nd Separate Helicopter Regiment, who was killed by a car bomb in St. Petersburg on Aug. 27. Sechkov had been accused of committing war crimes during the invasion, including deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians with missile and bombing attacks.
A top military general was also killed in a bombing in Moscow in an attack that was reportedly intended to target the commander-in-chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces. A high-ranking Russian naval officer who had defected from Ukraine years earlier was also killed by a bomb hidden in a trash can in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Meanwhile, Damir Davydov, a general in the supply department for the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Russian military, was killed by a car bomb in the Russian city of Balashikha in June.
“Ukraine’s targeted killing program has been working against Russian officers who Kyiv accuses of war crimes; the lists of names are public—Ukraine is targeting not only generals and colonels, the network built by the Ukrainian special services is much broader,” Vladimir Putin’s former speechwriter, Abbas Gallyamov, previously told the Daily Beast.
It has also been reported that Putin is becoming increasingly isolated as the war in Ukraine drags on, amid fears that there could be an assassination attempt against him.
In May, sources told the Financial Times that the Russian leader was spending more time hunkering down in underground bunkers, often hiding in them for several weeks while orchestrating the war.
The FSO has also reportedly been instructed to tighten security around the president, including by sharply reducing his public appearances.
Putin and his family no longer reside at residences around Moscow or Valdai, and staff close to the Russian president, including cooks, photographers and bodyguards, are banned from taking public transport or using electronic devices around him.
“He listens only to the security services, which now run all spheres of life, and hopes that people will adapt to this as the new normal,” Andrei Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based political analyst, told the Financial Times.
