So what national security, crime-fighting, or even catching spies (real ones) can we possibly talk about when a nationwide newspaper matter-of-factly tells us that the entire leadership of the FSB is made up of criminals and corrupt officials?
The scheme is very simple: The FSB clinic had a departmental kindergarten in an upscale part of the Odintsovo district.
The kindergarten property is reassigned for dacha development, and 22 plots are carved out there.
These 22 plots are handed out free of charge to senior FSB officials.
Having received the prime land for free, the FSB officials then all sell it at market price to a single businessman—the tobacco magnate Igor Kesaev, owner of the Mercury Group.
FSB generals become dollar millionaires.
Pretty impressive, right?
You have abuse of office here, fraud, and—most likely—bribery by Kesaev, the FSB's "friend" (as Novaya calls him).
Can you imagine the leadership of the FBI, or German or Israeli counterintelligence, pulling off schemes like this?
Or imagine the KGB leadership around 1980: generals receiving official dachas and then selling them at speculative prices to Uzbek underground factory operators?
It's impossible even to imagine such a thing.
But in Russia in 2015, this is reality—and these crooks and traitors presume to lecture us about loving the Motherland.
Places