Notes of a former KGB lieutenant colonel: The Institute of "honorary consuls," "Eurasians" in civilian clothes, and the invasion of Ukraine

One of the authors of the book "The KGB Plays Chess" and a former employee of the USSR State Security Committee, Vladimir Popov, recently completed work on his memoirs. In the book "Conspiracy of Scoundrels: Notes of a Former KGB Lieutenant Colonel," he tells of the formation of Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, his associates, his own work in the committee, and key events in which the Soviet special services were involved. The book has not been published before. With the author's consent, the publication "GORDON" exclusively publishes chapters from it. In this part, Popov writes about the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies and its employees involved in the invasion of Ukraine, about special service employees engaged in extrajudicial killings, and about how Russia uses the institute of "honorary consuls" abroad.

Evgeny Kubyshkin

In the late 1980s, Major General Evgeny Kubyshkin became the curator of the 11th Department of the 5th Directorate of the KGB. In the 1970s, Colonel Kubyshkin headed the 8th Department of the 5th Directorate of the KGB, which carried out the development of Zionist foreign centers and Jewish activists providing assistance to those wishing to emigrate to Israel. Kubyshkin was a drunkard and a great hunter of the female sex, almost openly cohabiting with the secretary of the department entrusted to him, the beauty Rita, who was about 25 years younger than him.

It is unlikely that all this was a secret for Bobkov, and yet he promoted Kubyshkin to the position of second secretary of the party committee of the KGB of the USSR, which was headed in the late 1970s by Geniy Ageev, the future deputy chairman of the KGB of the USSR and an active GKChP member. After the KGB party committee, Kubyshkin, with the help of Bobkov, who had already become deputy chairman of the KGB, was appointed to the position of deputy head of the Inspectorate Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, a kind of internal "inquisition," and became a general. The Inspectorate Directorate of the KGB carried out comprehensive control over the activities of the Soviet state security organs. And often an inspection check of the KGB of a union or autonomous republic was a harbinger of the removal from office of the heads of these units.

Often, vacancies were filled by Bobkov's proteges. Thus, the UKGB of the USSR for the Saratov region was headed by the former head of the 1st department of the 5th Directorate of the KGB, Colonel Pass Smolin; the UKGB of the USSR for the Ivanovo region – by the former head of the 6th department of the 5th Directorate, Colonel Valentin Beteev; the KGB of the Uzbek SSR – by the former head of the 7th department of the 5th Directorate of the KGB, Colonel Vladimir Golovin, and a number of others. All of them became major generals with the exception of Golovin, who received the rank of lieutenant general for the promotion of the "cotton case."

Occupying a leading position in the Inspectorate Directorate, General Kubyshkin, due to his character and small mind, made powerful enemies, which served as the reason for his appointment to the position of deputy head of the 5th Directorate of the KGB, which was completely unpromising for his further career. Even the most outstanding astrologer would not have dared to suggest then how fateful the appointment of the hapless General Kubyshkin to a pre-retirement position for him would be. The fact is that Kubyshkin, as soon as he began his duties in the new post, contrary to the categorical objections of the leadership of the 11th department, insisted on the enrollment in the 2nd section of the 11th department of the senior operative of the 2nd department of the UKGB of the USSR for the Irkutsk region, Major Sergey Chemezov. Now his name is widely known as the head of the corporation that sells Russian weapons all over the world, and as one of the closest friends of Vladimir Putin. But then Chemezov was nobody. Kubyshkin guessed right.