[ABC] President Vladimir Putin is planning a major restructuring of the country's security services that would effectively mean a rebirth of the KGB, according to a report in the Russian media.Respected business paper Kommersant quoted anonymous officials as saying that a new body called the "Ministry for State Security" would be established before Russia's 2018 presidential elections that, in its powers and roles, appears to closely resemble the Soviet-era KGB.
The new body would be known by the acronym "MGB."
I hope the carburetors are easier to keep tuned.
The reforms would restore most of the KGB’s functions to its successor service, the FSB, while also returning the foreign intelligence gathering to the same body, according to the newspaper.
The result would be a single powerful security structure, sitting at the heart of the state's enforcement machinery, much as the KGB once did in the Soviet Union.
Significantly, the changes would grant the new ministry powers not only to conduct criminal investigations but also give it procedural oversight over cases run by Russia's other law enforcement bodies. At the same time, Russia's top investigative bodies that now oversee political trials would see their powers sharply reduced and transferred to the MGB. The measures would make the body the most powerful security structure in the country.
"If before we were just providing support to investigation, then now we're being tasked with managing their progress from the moment that criminal charges are brought to their transfer to court," an anonymous FSB operative told Kommersant.