Kremlin Guards, Empty Front

Four security pillars keep Putin seated while Russia’s war machine runs dry

Russia’s war does not fracture first in Donetsk or Zaporizhzhia. It fractures inside the fortress one ruler built around himself.

• Fear is the architecture.

• Access is the currency.

• Loyalty is the tax.

The coup clock in the guardroom is why his inner circle is preparing for two wars at once: Ukraine at the front and a palace fight at home.

Illustrative photo: When shields rise at home, fronts abroad collapse

Four pillars keep him seated: the Federal Protective Service (FSO), the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya), Chechen “Akhmat” units, and the Federal Security Service (FSB).

Start with the message sent to the officer corps. Televised perp walks for generals are not mere cases but stagecraft that warns every colonel what disobedience costs. Every arrest doubles as a coup drill, and the image outruns the paperwork. The predictable result is the death of initiative at the front, because a bold plan today can be reframed as disloyalty tomorrow.

See my in-depth discussion with Denys Davydov on Russia’s failed offensive in Donbas!

Then follow the money. Oligarchs are pressured into making “donations,” undertaking forced projects, and receiving public gratitude that serve as loyalty tests. The price of safety is liquidity on demand and praise to the throne. Capital that cannot leave is not capital. Exit bans, custodianship, and asset transfers convert wealth into ballast, pushing competent managers into silence or exile. The palace hardens at the center while the state beneath it becomes brittle.

Next comes the regime’s real priority in the capital. Urban suppression outranks external war. The Russian National Guard, Rosgvardiya, a domestic army built for regime control, trains on bridges, TV towers, ministries, junctions, and river crossings that decide who holds a city in a bad hour. After the Wagner mutiny, legal changes and procurement moved Rosgvardiya beyond riot control toward heavy armaments, including tanks, artillery, and in some cases, point air-defense systems that protect specific sites. Viktor Zolotov’s personal tie to the ruler supplies the license. This is a domestic army by design, not drift.

A parallel coercive force sits near Moscow. Chechen “Akhmat” formations, Chechen forces used for televised coercion near the capital, a stage for rapid, televised shows of force aimed at elite hesitation. Their channel runs directly upward, parallel to ministries and the army. The point is immediate compliance among those who matter most in a crisis, not battlefield effect in Ukraine.

When elites must be disciplined without noise, quiet coercion falls to internal security. The Federal Security Service, the regime’s internal security and political police, conducts counterintelligence within the elite, opens cases to break up potential blocs before they form, and arbitrates disputes through investigation. Public arrests spread fear while sealed files secure silence in boardrooms. Seizures, exile, and choreographed confessions show the price of dissent. Fear becomes a professional service that funds regime security.

At the center sits the gate that makes all of this possible. Power begins at a threshold that no one crosses without permission. The body that runs that door manages proximity to the ruler and edits the truth that reaches him. That body is the Federal Protective Service, the gatekeeping protective service that controls access and secure communications. The FSO guards the President, command sites, and the Kremlin compound. Counter-drone rings and hardened corridors now define the inner city. Its Special Communications Service routes secure lines through the FSO itself, bypassing ministries and rival chains of command. Proximity sets careers, and the FSO sets proximity, so promotions, purges, and daily briefings are edited at the door. Access and information become currency minted by gatekeepers and spent by favorites.

When the four pillars overlap, missions and budgets collide. A sealed bubble requires pacified streets. As Rosgvardiya’s perimeters expand, its site security overlaps with FSO perimeters. Missions collide. Budgets collide. Friction becomes a feature, not a bug. In that friction, parallel loyalty complicates everything. Chechen formations operate through a separate channel that speaks upward without mediation. In any emergency, a parallel chain fractures unity and slows decisions. FSB case files reset the balance when force and status are insufficient, because the FSB can move money and men with a memorandum, whereas doctrine would dictate a stand-down.

Inside that machine, the oligarchy functions like modern boyars paying tribute for protection and access. The court sells certainty, and oligarchs buy it with cash, show projects, and televised loyalty. State contracts, export licenses, and regulatory waivers reward the faithful. In return, tycoons fund wartime foundations and patronage media. Custodianship moves assets to loyal trustees when an owner’s risk profile rises. Security personnel convert investigations into leverage while board seats become a means to an end. Tribute works for the palace because it is immediate and flexible, and because it reveals who obeys under pressure. It fails the state because it distorts priorities, blocks competition, and locks capital into decorative projects. Access to the ruler determines contract flow, legal exposure, and media shielding. The Kremlin Administration and the FSB police the hierarchy and settle disputes. The FSO controls the calendar and the room, converting access into advantage.

Magnates function as service nobility whose real asset is favor, not factories.

Earlier, Russia had boyars who held land for service and tribute. Today’s magnates hold licenses for service and tribute. The throne still arbitrates between clans to keep all below it dependent.

Tribute then turns into firepower. Patronage militias convert money into guns and fracture command. Corporate security turns into armed detachments tied to state firms and security services. Gazprom-linked Potok, Fakel, and Plamya were routed under the Ministry of Defense and Redut frameworks. Redut is not a clean private army but a GRU-aligned recruitment and financing network that umbrellas more than twenty formations with strength measured in the tens of thousands. Wagner’s unique autonomy and prison recruitment made it a political actor with its own logistics and heavy fires. Redut and the Gazprom detachments fight under closer state control and mixed paymasters, so they duplicate logistics, chase contracts, feud with other formations, and burn ammunition and maintenance cycles on overlapping empires. The result in Moscow is that there are more veto players when decisions must be made quickly, and the outcome at the front is a slower response and degraded discipline.

That logic reaches the battlefield bill. The invoice for palace stability arrives at the front. Budgets and focus migrate from artillery resupply, maintenance cycles, and NCO development to capital security and patronage militias. Officers avoid moves that could be perceived as disloyal if luck turns against them. Industrial distortions and forced philanthropy break investment timelines and prevent reliable repair. Recruiting and retention sag when careers depend more on sponsors than results. Ukraine gains time and space each month that Moscow funds guards and fiefdoms over guns.

All paths converge at the same stress point. The fortress is now audible as its own walls scrape for room. Stress concentrates where four pillars meet: access monopolies under the FSO, armored prestige under Rosgvardiya, parallel loyalty under Chechen units, and weaponized law under the FSB. No pillar can dominate without the ruler, so each cuts the others to stay even. A coup-proof design becomes a machine that consumes initiative. The next fracture line is private military bankrolled by state firms and oligarchs, because every patron builds a personal loyalty well that complicates any unified response.

There are indicators the outside world can track, and they rhyme. The bubble thickens when counter-drone zones expand and new secure communications projects appear around leadership nodes. Pantsir on rooftops is not decoration but confession. Internal troops are being up-armored under security pretexts, and armor is diverted to Rosgvardiya instead of being allocated to brigades that require shells and maintenance. Legal shock operations cluster after FSB board days, moving assets and silencing the right people on schedule. Chechen loyalty drills near the capital are televised and framed as a demonstration of readiness. PMC turf fights over contracts and logistics proliferate, with Redut and the Gazprom detachments at the center.

The pattern shows up in personnel purges. From spring 2024 through mid-2025, the defense-sector purge widened. Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested and then sentenced to thirteen years. In July 2025, Transport Minister Roman Starovoit was dismissed and then found dead near his car outside Moscow while under investigation. The sequence is the message.

Loyalty does not buy safety. Compliance buys time.

None of these measures builds victory abroad. They preserve the seat at home. A ruler who distrusts elites and fears the street cannot build a winning army. The four pillars that keep him seated, the FSO, Rosgvardiya, Chechen units, and the FSB, drain the state that must fight. Every purge buys time and sells capacity. Every forced payment fills the treasury and empties the future. Power turned inward weakens outward strength month by month. The guards may hold the door. The front pays the bill.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3745698-kremlin-provides-heavy-weapons-to-rosgvardia-after-prigozhins-mutiny-british-intelligence.html

2. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/08/8/7414639/

3. https://eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/62893

4. https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/russia/fso.htm

5. https://www.twz.com/pantsir-air-defense-systems-appear-on-moscow-rooftops

6. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/07/25/a-timeline-of-russias-defense-ministry-purge-a85216

7. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/former-russian-deputy-defence-minister-is-sentenced-13-years-corruption-tass-2025-07-01/

8. https://apnews.com/article/3597dae5523387892b851d71ddd22819

9. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-minister-was-implicated-embezzlement-investigation-before-death-sources-2025-07-08/

10. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/07/25/russia-corruption-starovoit-putin/

11. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-26-2023

12. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/05/16/it-s-not-just-wagner

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potok_%28PMC%29

14. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-redut-fake-pmc/32651874.html

15. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/23007

16. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ukrainian-drones-keep-targeting-moscow-as-red-square-parade-draws-foreign-leaders

17. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/12/chechen-forces-sign-contract-with-russia-after-wagners-refusal

18. https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/06/28/akhmat-to-the-rescue-how-do-chechen-special-forces-operate-en

19. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/IF11647.pdf

20. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-detains-fourth-top-defence-figure-bribe-taking-media-2024-05-23/