Russians fear resurgence of KGB

? President Vladimir Putin gave Russia’s security service sway over the border guards and government communications Tuesday — broad powers that nearly equal those of its powerful predecessor, the KGB.

Putin said the move, along with other Cabinet changes, should help the government fight illegal drugs and terrorism. Officials also said that the merger would also help save money and increase efficiency.

“We can’t say that the government structures are acting efficiently enough and duly coordinating their efforts in this very important sphere,” he said in televised remarks.

But some observers described it as yet another worrying sign of the growing clout of the KGB’s main successor agency, the Federal Security Service, or FSB.

The KGB was split into several separate agencies in the turbulent months surrounding the December 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The reform was then presented as a way to break with the KGB’s repressive past, limit its sweeping powers and make it more open for public control.

As part of the reform, the KGB was split into the FSB, which was put in charge of domestic security, and the Foreign Intelligence Service, intended to oversee spying abroad.

“They are recreating the same old monster,” said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, another Soviet-era dissident, who now heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, a respected human-rights organization. “It will definitely have a negative impact on the civil society.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, meets with Vladimir Matyukhin, left, named a Deputy Defense Minister in charge of weapons industries, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, second left, and Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Patrushev at the Kremlin in Moscow. Putin on Tuesday dramatically bolstered the clout of the KGB's main successor agency by giving it control over the country's border guards and government communications.

Putin, a 16-year KGB veteran, headed the FSB before becoming Russia’s prime minister and then president. He has spoken about his KGB career with pride and appointed some of his former colleagues to top government positions.

He earlier expanded the FSB’s clout by putting it in charge of the war in Chechnya. The decision Tuesday gives the FSB most of the broad authority enjoyed by its predecessor.

During recent years, the FSB has launched a series of trials against researchers accused of spying that raised fears of the resurgence of KGB tactics.

Alexeyeva said that the government was exerting growing pressure on human rights groups and environmental activists to make them toe the official line.