It is telling that the first question I saw asked in the media after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed when his helicopter crashed in the country's mountainous northeast on his way back from Azerbaijan in May was whether the United States was involved. By the same token, among the questions raised about Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent trip to Pyongyang, beyond its impact on simmering tensions across Asia, was his willingness to move further away from the Kremlin. Namely, should the United States and its allies try to oust Putin by facilitating a coup d'état in his absence or assassinate him during such trips? The answer lies in assessing the risks versus the benefits.
What would be gained by killing Putin? If the status quo were compared to the consequences of Putin's violent removal, would Russia's threat to the United States and its allies be diminished? Would Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine and stop posing a threat to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe? Or would Russian intentions become even more hostile and less predictable? Despite Putin's obsession with intrigue, denial and deception, he is quite predictable. Indeed, the United States, with Britain moving in the same direction, was the exception among NATO allies, not to mention Ukraine itself, predicting Putin's attack plans with considerable confidence.
Would the United States do that? History shows that the US condoned violence by sponsoring the overthrow of democratically elected antagonistic regimes in Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1973, while Church Committee investigations documented multiple CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba.
More recently, the United States has made no attempt to hide its role in the January 2020 assassination of the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, a historical precedent that could be considered an act of war. Since 11/XNUMX, America's counter-terrorism strategy has in practice been based on assassination. The mantra "find, fix, end" is another euphemism for preemptively hunting down and killing terrorists abroad before they strike on American soil.
While these cases collectively demonstrate the US government's willingness to take serious, lethal action in the name of national security, when separated from transnational terrorist targets, only the attack on Soleimani was carried out while he was abroad. The operations to overthrow Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, Salvador Allende in Chile, and Castro in Cuba depended on internal elements that facilitated conspiracies.
Regime change is not always profitable
In addition to these cases and possible involvement in others, US authorities probably favored the status quo of a predictable adversary. Regime change did not bode well for US interests. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq was no small factor in triggering the Arab Spring, with effects that continue to reverberate throughout the Middle East, reflected in the unresolved civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, as well as ongoing political instability in Egypt and Tunisia.
The US occupation of Iraq also facilitated the rise of the Islamic State. And the Taliban eventually outlasted the United States in Afghanistan, returning to power despite 20 years of spilling American blood and resources, and now harboring insurgent groups that threaten Pakistan, Iran, its Central Asian neighbors and China.
The tendency to accept the known status quo is further strengthened when that country is armed with nuclear weapons. As for Russia, even under the most ideal circumstances in which the US government could remove Putin and hide its involvement, how sure is Washington that a stable and less hostile leadership would replace him?
In Russia, as in most autocracies, power rests with those who control the nation's instruments of power - primarily weapons, but also money, infrastructure, natural resources, connections and knowledge of where secrets are hidden. That power is currently concentrated within a small circle of 70-year-olds, almost all of whom have strong ties to Putin, the Cold War-era KGB, and St. Petersburg. The Russian armed forces are strong in terms of troops and tools, but under Putin, as in the Soviet days, they are kept on a short leash and closely watched, with little discretionary authority to draw weapons or leave garrisons.
Who among close people could overthrow Putin
The three organizations most capable of turning against Putin and the Kremlin are the Federal Security Service, or FSB; Rosgvardija, or National Guard; and the Presidential Security Service within the Federal Protective Service, or FSO. The FSB is Russia's internal security and intelligence arm through which Putin rules, given its relative massiveness and omnipresence in all the country's institutions. The FSB enforces Putin's rule, monitors dissent, intimidates, punishes and maintains ties to organized crime. The Russian Guard is Putin's brute force. It was founded in 2016, bringing together interior ministry militias that were variously responsible for internal order and border security, to be Putin's long red line against protests, rebellions and armed coup attempts.
Alexander Bortnikov heads the FSB, having succeeded Nikolai Patrushev, who followed Putin and has since served as one of his top lieutenants. Until recently, Patrushev served as head of Russia's Security Council and was arguably the Kremlin's number two, and may still be, despite becoming an adviser to the president. Bortnikov, like Patrushev, shares Putin's worldview, paranoia towards the West, political philosophy and glorification of the old Soviet empire.
Bortnikov is seen as Putin's most trusted and loyal subordinate, and in turn, the person best placed to oust him, should he so desire. While Bortnikov doesn't stand out much, limited glimpses suggest a degree of modesty and controlled ambition, though unverified rumors suggest health issues. His deputy, Sergei Borisovich Korolev, some ten years younger, is seen as efficient, similarly ruthless, but perhaps too ambitious and overbearing in his dealings with Russian organized crime. It is likely that Putin sees a bright future for Korolev, but is also reserved enough to still assess and wait for Korolev to mature before appointing him as Bortnik's successor.
Rosgvardija, which consists of more than 300 people, is commanded by Viktor Zolotov, Putin's former bodyguard for many years. Also part of Putin's 2023-year-old team from St. Petersburg, with significant ties to organized crime in the past, Zolotov emerged somewhat from the shadows following the June XNUMX rebellion of former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Zolotov took credit for protecting Moscow and publicly reflected on how he would his organization is likely to grow and provide more resources to more easily deal with its responsibilities.
Zolotov may not be as educated or sophisticated as Putin's traditional siloviki (a person who works for the state and is allowed to use force against citizens or others), all ex-KGB veterans of the Cold War era, but as a street thug from St. Petersburg succeeded in the ranking, he is no stranger to the use of force to achieve his goals.
Little is known about Zolotov's politics beyond his loyalty to his boss, but there is no evidence that he could offer a progressive alternative, less hostile to the West. Just as Putin normally works for all those in his inner circle to ensure their loyalty, Zolotov's family members are rewarded with land, gifts and key positions. For example, Patrushev's son is now the deputy prime minister.
The FSO includes the Presidential Security Service, about 50.000 troops, and is responsible for the close physical protection of Putin. Little is known about its director, Dmitry Viktorovich Kochnev, now 60, whose mysterious official biography indicates that he was born in Moscow, served in the army from 1982 to 1984, and then entered the "security agencies of the USSR and Russia Federation" from 1984 to 2002, after which it was officially assigned to the FSO.
If Kochniev wanted to kill Putin, he would have plenty of time to achieve that goal, but it is unlikely that he would have the means and network to go forward alone in taking power. Kochnev would still need the FSB and Rosgvardiya to carry out the mission, so he would likely be complicit, but not at the head of such a plot.
There are also several other people close to Putin who could influence who would replace him, or become his replacement, such as Igor Sechin, former deputy prime minister and current CEO of Rosneft; former KGB Lieutenant General Sergei Ivanov, also former Minister of Defense and First Deputy Prime Minister; and former KGB lieutenant general Viktor Ivanov, who also served as director of the Federal Anti-Narcotics Service. All are known to be ideologically aligned with the Russian leader and want a renewed empire unwilling to abide by the world order and rules created by the West, which they believe are aimed at keeping Moscow weak and subservient.
Foreign leaders are not immune to assassinations
If Putin were killed abroad, regardless of the evidence, the old guard would likely blame the United States and use it as a lightning rod to consolidate power and rally the people. And sharing Putin's paranoia about the existential threat the West poses, the risk is credible that they would retaliate militarily, directly, and with uncertain restraint. Believing themselves to be insecure, they would also ruthlessly crack down on dissenters at home, which could unleash long-pent up revolutionary energy among the populace, further throwing a major, nuclear-armed power into chaos.
But could the United States do it if it wanted to? History shows that foreign leaders are not immune to assassinations, as we were reminded when Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico survived a point-blank gunshot fired at him by a disgruntled citizen in May. However, unlike those in the movies, assassinations are complicated, especially against well-protected and deliberately unpredictable targets in foreign environments over which you have no control.
According to leaked documents and a report by Gleb Karakulov, a former FSO engineer and captain, Putin is paranoid about his safety and health. Karakulov's observations, Putin's limited travel and his tendency to engage in direct contact with only a small number of insiders for his own security make him a difficult target. Scrupulous care for his movements includes intensive vetting, quarantine and close monitoring of those involved in his transport and his personal routine, as well as securing the cars, trains and planes he uses. Who can forget the flood of photos and memes about the five-meter-long table Putin used when conducting personal meetings during the covid pandemic?
Any such plan to succeed requires close reconnaissance of the target and good intelligence to determine patterns and vulnerabilities upon which to construct a plan. But while visits by foreign heads of state follow certain protocols and have predictable events, there are no long-term patterns within which vulnerabilities are easily identified. Other things that should be considered include the infiltration and extraction of the various people carrying out the operation, as well as their tools. North Korea is not an easy place to visit, let alone for a foreign intelligence operation looking to steal secrets or carry out a visible action such as assassination.
There are certainly additional risks when Putin or any foreign leader travels outside the layered, limited and tested security protocols they enjoy in their domestic cocoons. Visitors must rely on the home government for a variety of resources and necessities too numerous and expensive to pack, and to do so would offend the hosts. This relates to perimeter and route security, emergency medical support and infrastructure integrity.
The threat to a foreign leader's communications security, health information and information about their entourage is greater while they are in transit abroad - and therefore an attractive intelligence target. The multiple moving parts and complicated logistics associated with such visits produce information that must be shared with home governments and include agendas, itineraries, dietary requirements, flight and cargo manifests, communication frequencies, telephone numbers, email addresses, passenger biographical details and weapons, among other things.
In an era of ubiquitous technical surveillance, as Israelis learned firsthand when Mossad agents killed Hamas official Mahmoud Al Mabuh in 2010, going undetected in any city is no small feat. Mabuh's killing was mostly captured by CCTV cameras. The investigation in Dubai identified as many as 28 operatives who were involved, almost all of whom were discovered by technical means or by the clues they generated.
Yet whoever killed the notorious Lebanese Hezbollah head of international operations, Imad Mughnia, in Damascus in February 2008 and Al Qaeda deputy Abu Muhammad Al Masri in Tehran in 2020 managed to carry out complex attacks in highly restrictive police states. Of course, none of them moved with security, let alone with the one that would surround the head of state.
Israel managed to kill a top Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakrizadeh, in November 2020 in Iran despite security - albeit a sci-fi operation involving a robot equipped with a remote-controlled heavy machine gun.
Putin and Russia are something else
On the other hand, even with the best plans to protect Putin, the weak link could be the Russian leader's self-imposed vulnerability, depending on the old-fashioned and troubled Soviet Ilyushin Il-96 series of jets he uses, as was the case in recent trip to North Korea and Vietnam. Even if Russia were to build and replace the parts, there are obsolescence and limitations that would make it impossible to reconfigure such an old aircraft design.
While it can be argued that there is an element of Putin's pride in wanting to use Russian equipment, I suspect that his preference is driven more by paranoia about what adversaries might install on his transport, preventing him from adopting newer Western aircraft, as commercial ones have done airlines of his country.
Also, there are significant bureaucratic obstacles to lethal operations. Currently, United States practice regarding covert action is dictated by the rule of law. These are primarily executive orders, not public laws, such as EO 12333, which ironically prohibits assassinations, and various presidential memoranda issued by Barack Obama in 2013, Donald Trump in 2017, and Joe Biden in 2022, directing the use of "direct action." , a euphemism for drone strikes and other kinetic operations, against terrorist targets outside conflict zones. The United States killed Soleimani as a terrorist who fit these guidelines, but killing foreign leaders based on credible intelligence reflecting their continued efforts to harm the United States would still understandably meet the legal criterion of preemptive self-defense.
When it comes to killing Putin or any prominent opponent, the biggest challenge is not necessarily whether it can be done, but whether it should be done. Killing Soleimani outright carried risks, of course, but at the end of the day, Iran is not an existential threat. His retaliation could have been more expensive, had Tehran chosen escalation, but still bearable.
Russia, on the other hand, as Putin often reminds the West in his warmongering speeches threatening nuclear war, is another matter. What happens if you fail? As Omar Little from the series "The Wire" said, paraphrasing Ralph Waldo Emerson: "When you attack the king, you better not miss."
The article is authored by Douglas London, professor of intelligence studies at Georgetown University's School of International Affairs and non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. He served in the secret service of the CIA for more than 34 years.
Translation: Stefan Strugar
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