RUSSIA DEFENSE REPORT:
COUNTERMEASURES OF HYBRID WAR
(South Front) ~ On April 5, 2016, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing a new paramilitary formation, the National Guard, out of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Internal Troops, and ordering a number of organizational changes in the MVD and other associated agencies.
The first commander of the National Guard will be the Internal Troops commander since 2014, Army General Viktor Vasilyevich Zolotov, who has had a long career in the intelligence and security services dating to the 1980s. The National Guard will include the Internal Troops as well as the SOBR and OMON special riot control and counter-terrorism units, which will result in a paramilitary internal security organization directly comparable to France’s Gendarmerie Nationale.
This will provide the National Guard commander and, ultimately, the President, with an integrated internal security organization capable of fine-tuning the level of violence, depending on the level of the threat, starting with Maidan-style not-so-peaceful protests and ending with full-scale insurgencies. During the Chechen Wars, Internal Troops became almost indistinguishable from the Armed Forces in that they were using artillery and armored vehicles. While there is no mention of the National Guard’s external role, its mission might also involve peacekeeping and law enforcement operations in, say, the Donbass, where their presence would be less controversial than of the military.
Instead of being part of the MVD subordinate to its minister, the National Guard’s commander will answer directly to the President, which implies institutional standing on a par with other security services and ministries. National Guard’s sphere of responsibility will include combating terrorism and organized crime. Furthermore, the MVD will absorb a number of separate federal agencies, such as the Federal Migration Service (FMS) and the Federal Drug Trafficking Interdiction Service (FSKN).
These far-reaching changes suggest that Russia is taking seriously the threat, voiced by ISIS, al-Nusra, and several of its international sponsors, that it will “pay a price” for defeating Islamist forces in Syria. Even though ISIS cannot avoid a crushing defeat in Syria at this point, many of its militants, leaders, and organizational networks will migrate or be transferred by their international sponsors to other theaters of the global hybrid war. While they include Libya, a more worrisome prospect is their use to destabilize Central Asia and perhaps even the Caucasus.
The combined focus on drug trafficking, organized crime, migration, and terrorism is not coincidental, because in combination these are vital elements of hybrid warfare practiced by Islamist forces. We have seen these factors in action, individually and in combination, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and most recently in Western Europe, where the migrant stream is being used to entrench organized crime groups with ties to the Middle East. These organized crime networks can then serve as a “delivery vehicle” of sorts for terrorists who can use the tried and true illegal transportation networks to enter Europe and perpetrate acts of terrorism.
One should expect a similar model to be used soon in Central Asia, with Russia being the ultimate target. For all of Obama’s talk about Russia’s economy being “torn to shreds”, the fact remains that its labor market is still large enough to absorb large numbers of migrant workers from adjoining countries. Many of them come from Central Asia. There are significant organized crime networks all over Russia with ties to the Caucasus and Central Asia which are engaged in drug trafficking and which likewise could be used for terrorist purposes. In order for such tactics to be effectively countered, a single government agency dealing with all of the components of hybrid war in an integrated manner will be much more effective than having several agencies each attempting to address individual aspects of the problem.
The new National Guard appears to be an instrument that is directly intended to make the hybrid war doctrines fail when applied against Russia and its close allies.
(Written and produced by SouthFront Team: J.Hawk, Daniel Deiss, Edwin Watson)
Putin orders creation of National Guard to fight terrorism, organized crime
(Russia Today News) ~ President Vladimir Putin has ordered that a National Guard be created in Russia under the auspices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The guard will fight terrorism and organized crime.
“We have made a decision to create a new federal executive body within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, namely the National Guard,” the president said Tuesday.
The National Guard “will be fighting terrorism, organized crime, all in close cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They will also continue to perform the functions which are currently carried out by riot police units, SWAT, etc.,” he added.
The National Guard will be formed out of existing Interior Ministry troops.
“We thought about how to improve [the work of law enforcement] in all areas, including those related to fighting terrorism, to organized crime and illicit drug trafficking,” Putin said.
The statement came as Putin met Interior Minister Viktor Kolokoltsev, head of the Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov, and the commander of the interior troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Viktor Zolotov.
Viktor Zolotov, ex-commander of the Internal Troops and former head of the President’s personal security service, has been appointed as the leader of the new structure, with orders to report directly to the president, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday.
He also drew attention to the fact that Zolotov “has grand experience in [the work of] special forces. This is a very good basis for managing a body such as the National Guard.”
The National Guard will not perform field investigation activities, but they will be involved in fighting terrorism within the country, he added. It is not yet clear, however, whether these troops will be taking part in counter-terrorism operations abroad, according to the spokesman.
Peskov said that the National Guard will work to protect public safety and order along with the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Peskov added that the changes in the structure of internal troops do not mean a loss of confidence in them, stressing that the move is aimed at improving their combat capabilities and increasing their effectiveness.
The creation of the new department will require improving the existing legal regulatory framework, as well as setting up ties with other agencies dealing with state security, especially the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, for coordination, he added.
No increase in staffing will be needed, according to Peskov. Moreover, “a combination of merging the Federal Drug Control Service and the Federal Migration Service with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the allocation of internal troops into the National Guard will optimize the entire structure,” he explained.
Legislators welcome National Guard
State Duma representatives have welcomed the President’s decision. Michael Starshinov, head of the inter-factional group on the interaction of civil society with law enforcement and intelligence agencies, considers the creation of the National Guard the State’s response to the current challenges.
“I can only support the president’s decision, because it corresponds with the logic of reforming the judicial system in general and the Ministry of Interior in particular. This step, of course, is also a response to modern challenges and threats, primarily from the international terrorism” Starshinov told reporters.
The deputy chairman of the Duma committee on security and corruption control, Andrey Lugovoy, expressed his hope for positive changes from the creation of the new structure. “The fact that the internal forces will obtain new duties – fighting against organized crime and terrorism – I would expect that the effect of this will be positive,” Lugovoy said.
Franz Klintsevich, first Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, noted the National Guard will not have to answer to a long hierarchy of superiors, which will make decision-making easier and faster. “[The National Guard will] possess the maximum resources to fight terrorism, including the best forces from the Interior Ministry troops – the people, as they say, proven in combat. It will be endowed with ample powers laid down by federal law [and] will be able to make decisions quickly, without wasting time on all sorts of coordination.”
State Duma deputy from the party ‘Spravedlivaya Rossiya’ Tatyana Moskalkova also welcomed the news, predicting great improvement to the effectiveness of internal troops.
“The task of combating crime involves the use of specific tools, which are owned by internal troops. [Internal troops] use this special knowledge and special tools to deal with the most dangerous criminal manifestations, such as terrorism, hostage taking, hijacking and riots. The forming of the National Guard is a step toward strengthening the structure [of security forces] and finding new solutions to these security problems,” she said.
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5 times Putin used foreign languages for diplomacy
(VIDEO & REPORTS)
While Putin has amazed the internet with an impromptu interpretation for a German politician in St. Petersburg, that is only one of many episodes when Russia’s president proved he could break any language barrier to convey a message or discharge tension.
Thursday’s incident at a St. Petersburg forum, which saw Putin casually translating for former State Secretary of the German Defense Ministry, Willy Wimmer, went viral, with the latter only half-jokingly suggesting that the Russian leader’s skills were worth including in the Guinness Book of World Records. RT recalls five memorable episodes when Putin didn’t shun the opportunity to speak a foreign language in public.
SOURCES:
RT News
South Front
Submitted by SyrianPatriots
War Press Info Network at:
https://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/russ-national-guard/
~
Uprooted Palestinian 
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