Vladimir Putin speaks at the meeting of Russian Federal Security Service Board

Photo: Kremlin.ru

Vladimir Putin spoke at a meeting of the board of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, Kremlin informs.

At the meeting of Federal Security Service Board. With Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

“Mr Bortnikov, comrades.

Today, at the annual board meeting of the Federal Security Service, you will discuss a wide range of professional issues and outline priorities for the future.

Notably, all the goals set before you last year were accomplished at a high level overall, and the concrete results of your work show that the FSB is a strong, reliable and effective link in the system for ensuring national security.

Your specialised units acted promptly and competently, defended the sovereignty, national interests of Russia, and rights of our citizens, reliably protected the constitutional order, combatted terrorism, extremism, and crime, and conducted complex counterintelligence operations.

Comrades, I would like to thank you and all the personnel of the Russian Federal Security Service for your professionalism, resolve, and dedication.

Special words of gratitude go to those who, during the special military operation, acted behind enemy lines, on the line of contact, and in difficult conditions protected the safety of our people in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

We are proud of the valour of the FSB border units, which took the blow of superior enemy armed formations in the border areas.

In our hearts will forever remain The feats of the fallen FSB officers, border guards, special forces operatives, and members of other units, who gave their lives for the Motherland, but did not waver and did not retreat. Let us honour the memory of our comrades with a minute of silence.

(Minute of silence.)

Meeting participants,

You see, and we all see how rapidly the world and the international situation are changing. In this regard, I would like to note that the first contacts with the new US administration inspire certain hopes. There is a reciprocal commitment to work to restore interstate relations and to gradually address the enormous amount of systemic and strategic problems in the global architecture which once provoked the crises in Ukraine and other regions.

Importantly, our partners demonstrate pragmatism and a realistic vision of things, and have abandoned numerous stereotypes, the so-called rules, and messianic, ideological clichés of their predecessors, which, in fact, caused the crisis of the entire system of international relations and, in fact, you and I can see it too, began to destroy the Western community itself from within. This is evidenced by problems in the economy and the domestic politics of many Western countries. We see it all. This is especially evident in the domestic political events unfolding in these countries.

Today’s dynamic changes in the international landscape are to a great extent the result of the courage and fortitude of our Armed Forces, our heroes. Through their valour and daily victories, they have created the conditions for the beginning of a serious dialogue, a dialogue on bringing a fundamental solution to Ukraine crisis, among others, including, of course – we always talk about it, and we have never refused to do so – by peaceful means; a dialogue on creating a system that will truly ensure a balance and mutual consideration of interests, an indivisible European and global security system for the long term, where the security of some countries cannot be ensured at the expense or to the detriment of the security of other countries, definitely not Russia.

We realise that not everyone is happy to see Russia-US contacts resume. A portion of Western elites are still committed to maintaining instability in the world, and these forces will try to disrupt or to compromise the newly resumed dialogue. You and I see this. We need to keep this in mind and leverage every possibility offered by diplomacy and special services to thwart such attempts. Most importantly, just like before, it is important for us to staunchly uphold our national interests, sovereignty, and protect the lives and freedoms of our citizens against any threats.

In this regard, the FSB needs to continue the system-wide work across all specialised areas, primarily, to fight international terrorism. Notably, the number of terrorist crimes has grown over the past year, and more than half of them have been planned and organised by the Ukrainian special services and their curators.

The FSB, other departments and law enforcement agencies, in coordination with the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, must use their available powers and resources as effectively as possible. Focus must be placed on preventive measures, increasing the anti-terrorist protection of military and industrial facilities, life support systems, public facilities, as well as energy and transport infrastructure.

Work must continue to strengthen the counterterrorism potential of the FSB units in the Donbass and Novorossiya regions. Let me stress that today these units are making significant efforts to neutralise terrorist and sabotage groups and gather intelligence on the enemy.

Strict additional measures must be adopted to defend the state border. The density of border coverage in potentially dangerous areas must be further increased, in cooperation with army, Russian Guard, and Interior Ministry units, as well as local authorities, to ensure the safety of people in border settlements.

Extremism and terrorism must be fought decisively and aggressively, as well as any attempts to divide and split our society, or antagonise different ethnic and religious groups against each other must be supressed. We understand very well that this is one of the lines of attack against Russia, a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state.

Counterintelligence agencies face important tasks. Regular reports and dispatches indicate that the activity of foreign intelligence services during the special military operation has increased, as has their level of technical equipment.

This means we must significantly strengthen counterintelligence protection of military and strategic information, related to state and military management, the development of new weapons, and advanced technologies in various other industries.

I would like to note that everything related to civilian technologies and developments must be approached thoughtfully – not according to some template, but with a calm, competent and intelligent strategy. Our scientists’ achievements must not be locked away in safes, but quickly integrated into production, to be used both in our domestic market and to contribute to the expansion of our high-tech exports.

As many of you probably saw, we discussed this at the recent forum on the development of chemistry and the new materials industry. Of course, we must also protect our innovations from being stolen and misused by our competitors.

Colleagues,

A traditionally important area of your work is ensuring economic security. I have repeatedly said this and want to repeat it once again today: protecting the legitimate rights of Russian businesses and fighting financial and banking crime is one of the foundations of competitiveness of our national jurisdiction and of a favourable investment climate in Russia. This is extremely important.

It is necessary to be more active in opposing corruption. You should constantly supervise the implementation of the state defence order and national projects as well as the progress of long-term federal and regional programmes.

Let me also note that the number of cyber attacks on the Russian information infrastructure, including official government websites and resources and services run by state corporations and agencies grows in parallel with the development of digital technologies. Moreover, these crimes are of a systemic, multi-aspect, and multi-vector nature, which means that they are inflicting damage on the state, the business community, and individuals.

Enhancing security and safety of the national information infrastructure and looking for new methods of neutralising cyber threats is among the tasks facing Russian security agencies, including your service.

Colleagues,

In May of this year, we will mark the 80th anniversary of Great Victory. During the celebrations, as we congratulate our war veterans, we will certainly recall with gratitude the heroes of Russian security services, including the intelligence men, special department employees, SMERSH fighters, and border guards, who made a truly invaluable contribution to the defeat of Nazism and its accomplices – Bandera supporters, members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, as well as traitors and collaborationists of all stripe.

Modern history also knows numerous examples of true bravery and self-sacrifice on the part of our fighters, our comrades. I am confident that the present generation of defenders of the Fatherland, including FSB employees, will treasure the traditions of their predecessors, those who upheld the interests of the Fatherland and safeguarded the security of our country and our people at the time of the Russian Empire and in the Soviet period, and are doing the same in present-day Russia.

Comrades,

I wish you success and thank you for your time. Thank you for your service.

Thank you.”

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