FSB
The principal security service of the Russian Federation, successor to the KGB domestic wing
Overview
The FSB took over KGB domestic functions after 1991 and received its current form by 1995. Headquartered in the Lubyanka, it runs counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and border security, and it led the responses to the Moscow theater siege of 2002 and the Beslan school crisis of 2004. President Vladimir Putin rose from its ranks, as did many senior officials, giving the service outsized political weight. Documented public debate concerns the breadth of its internal monitoring role, which the agency frames as protection of national security.
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