Vladimir Poutine Launches Purges as Sergueï Choïgou Allies Face Corruption Arrests

More than two years after Vladimir Poutine démis Sergueï Choïgou de ses fonctions, the Russian president has seen a wave of purges as Choïgou’s close collaborators are imprisoned for corruption, including the arrest of Rouslan Tsalikov for creation d’une organisation criminelle et corruption.

The article says Choïgou, now secretary du Conseil de sécurité, has been repeatedly celebrated by Poutine and has traveled to Pyongyang to meet Kim Jong-un, but that his role now appears “secondaires et humiliantes.”

Blick

It also describes how Timour Ivanov, condemned à treize ans de prison for corruption, is trying to volunteer for the war in Ukraine but that this request is refused, while Pavel Popov awaits his verdict in the prison de Lefortovo.

The piece frames the purges as driven by fear in the Kremlin of “un éventuel coup d'Etat mené par le clan de Choïgou,” with loyalty checks in military circles, and it links the arrest of Tsalikov to a massive mobile internet outage affecting the FSB building on la place Loubianka, the administration présidentielle, the Conseil de sécurité, Moscow-City, and units of the ministère de la Défense.

The article adds that Telegram channels claim the next accused in the corruption wave could be Choïgou himself, and it cites the Telegram chain «WTSchK-OGPU» as pointing to the outage after Tsalikov’s arrest.

In Italy and across Europe, Il Messaggero describes “Sabotage activities, arson, attacks on infrastructure, and targeted killings of dissidents in Europe,” calling it a shadow war in which Russian intelligence services play a central role.

Sergio Germani, director of the Gino Germani Institute, says that after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, “we have noticed an escalation of subversive methodologies to destabilize our society from within,” adding that “The escalation is certain.”

El País

Blick reports that in late February, D. A.*, a presumed GRU member, was arrested at Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport in Colombia, and that Western intelligence circles identified for the first time a member of the elite Russian unit 75127, also known as Center 795.

The same report says unit 75127 was created in 2023 and is directly subordinated to the Russian Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, with a mission to carry out sabotage operations, special forces interventions, and targeted assassinations of regime opponents in the West.

Blick further states that the unit would number around 500 members, that it officially belongs to the Kalashnikov Group training center in Patriot Park near Moscow, and that documents reviewed by Spiegel show three main divisions and a total of 35 specialized sub-divisions including a medical unit.

El País portrays a Kremlin that remains cohesive despite internal frictions, saying Vladimir Putin's approval remains massive and that the Federal Security Service (FSB) is infiltrated everywhere “from the barracks to the most secluded ministerial department.”

“Sabotage activities, arson, attacks on infrastructure, and targeted killings of dissidents in Europe”

Il Messaggero

It also cites the repression of dissent through the suicide note of Nina Litvinova, who wrote: “Putin attacked Ukraine and kills innocent people, while here he imprisons thousands of people who suffer and die because they are, like me, against the war and against murder.”

The article links the Kremlin’s survival instinct to public opinion, stating that a Levada Center poll in April found 79% of Russians approve of their president’s work and that VTSIOM estimates approval of 66.8% by early May.

El País says the FSB’s control has included an Internet blackout and unilaterally cutting mobile connections in several regions, hindering card payments and chats on WhatsApp and Telegram, and it quotes political analyst Farida Rustamova saying: “Disappointment with the negotiations with Donald Trump last year.”

Finally, it warns that the FSB will not soften its control, quoting Vladislav Inozemtsev, cofounder of the Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe (CASE), and it ties the consequences to the possibility that “perhaps the war ends, the situation changes, and it cannot implement this kind of control without consequences,” as Rustamova explains.