Executive Summary:
- Independent Russian investigative journalism platform Important Stories published a report on May 4 about the growing split among Kremlin elites. Russia’s security apparatus’s inability to protect the top military leadership is reportedly one of the causes of the conflict.
- Russia is likely facing two overlapping scenarios for its future. Loyal security forces may consolidate into a repressive bloc, or the current order could systemically collapse, resembling the Times of Troubles under Ivan the Terrible.
- A “new oprichnina”—wherein loyal armed forces would enforce Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority through escalating repression and violence toward elites perceived as disloyal—could disrupt the balance among elite factions and make Putin increasingly dependent on his security apparatus.
The Important Stories (Vazhniye Istorii, Важные Истории) portal, an independent Russian investigative journalism platform, published a report on the growing split among Kremlin elites on May 4. The document, citing intelligence from an EU country, states that the security apparatus’s inability to protect the top military leadership is one of the causes of the conflict. The report also notes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fear of a coup d’état, and that Kremlin elites view Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu as a potential initiator (Vazhniye Istorii, May 4).
Russian military commentators at the Military Review (Voennoe Obozreniye, Военное Обозрение, also known as TopWar.ru) website—affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defense—covered the May 4 report from Important Stories. Commentators acknowledge that the report is broadly credible, but also argue that “one should not expect any manifestations of discontent from the military,” since it is completely financially dependent on the state (Topwar.ru, May 7). The authors of the Military Review article portray Russian economic elites as the most likely source of a potential coup. Earlier in the same piece, however, they assert that only a member of the security apparatus could organize such a conspiracy.
Mainstream military commentators’ dissatisfaction with Russia’s trajectory is obvious. The Military Review website, which until recently maintained complete loyalty to the Kremlin, has increasingly begun raising the same questions as radical Z-bloggers (see EDM, April 27). Z-bloggers, for example, expressed outrage that the Russian Foreign Ministry promised an “inevitable strike” on Ukraine only if Ukraine attempted to disrupt the Victory Day parade in Moscow. According to them, “the same citizens of Russia live in Kursk and Bryansk as those who will march in formation on May 9,” yet strikes on those cities provoked no “inevitable response” (Telegram/@ve4niyvoy, May 7). The authors of Military Review are asking the same question and went further, questioning the necessity of holding a parade in Moscow while “drones and cruise missiles are striking Cheboksary” (Topwar.ru, May 6).
The Kremlin’s inability to protect the home front has become another point of contention between radical Russian patriots and the rank-and-file military on one side, and the high-level security apparatus on the other. The ultraconservative television channel Tsargrad openly called the Ukrainian drone strikes inside Russia a catastrophe and published a list of oil refineries that Ukraine has put out of operation. The site’s authors warn that Russia “risks being left without fuel for its own gas station[s]” and ask who is supposed to protect the refineries (Тsargrad.tv, May 6).
Roman Anin, an investigative journalist and founder of Important Stories, believes that “military Putinism” has entered a new phase—“a war among Russian security-apparatus clans for the throne of a weakening dictator.” In his view, two overlapping short-term scenarios are possible. The first is the consolidation around Putin of loyal enforcers from the Federal Protective Service (FSO) and the National Guard, who would form a Russian analog of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and carry out “unprecedented repression.” The second is a new Time of Troubles (Smutnoe Vremia, Смутное Время), a period of severe crisis in Russia from the late 16th century to the early 17th century. Anin argues that the economic damage and political terror of the oprichnina (oпричнина)—a policy introduced by Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) in 1565 that used a loyal armed force to enforce his authority through repression, confiscations, and violence against suspected elites—weakened the state and led to the Times of Troubles (Vazhniye Istorii, May 4).
Putin is already consolidating loyal security forces around him. As early as last year, independent observers noted a rise in repression against Russian elites (24tv.ua, July 28, 2025). Putin is using corruption charges to replace the leadership of frontline regions with individuals drawn from the military or security apparatus (see EDM, May 4). In part, these changes are designed to intimidate other political and economic elites. Russian political scientist Vladimir Pastukhov believes that repression against the bureaucracy is already approaching the scale of repression directed at the same social segment during the Great Terror under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (Youtube/@khodorkovskylive, May 3).
This spring, Putin expanded the powers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) to an unprecedented degree (see EDM, April 23). The level of repression in Russia is determined not only by the need to control society, but also by an internal quota-driven system within the security apparatus, under which security personnel must fulfill assigned targets. This system turns repression into a self-perpetuating mechanism no longer governed by strategic political choices.
One consequence of the quota-driven system is the use of torture to extract confessions from innocent people. A striking example is the case of Russian citizen Svetlana Savelyeva, who attempted to reunite with her partner, a serviceman in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In the eyes of the Russian security apparatus, loving a Ukrainian is already treated as a crime. To classify the case under the charge of “treason,” however, the authorities reportedly brutally tortured Svetlana to force her to confess to wanting to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Liudi Baikala, February 13).
Independent sociologists are observing growing public dissatisfaction both with the costs of Putin’s war against Ukraine and with the imposition of “traditional values” (Re: Russia, April 29; see EDM, May 6). The regime’s response to this discontent has been further repression. There is a growing number of women prisoners in Russian jails because of rising poverty and harsher punishments for crimes associated with “survival,” including petty theft and everyday fraud. The number of female political prisoners convicted on charges of treason, terrorism, and extremism has also reached a peak (Verstka, May 4).
Putin’s repression has not yet targeted the Russian security apparatus itself. The internal logic of escalating terror, however, makes such an outcome only a matter of time, especially if the Kremlin proves unable to guarantee security on the home front. If the security apparatus faces repression from its regime, the risk of a coup and a new Time of Troubles will become even more real.
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