Federal Security Service

Principal security agency of Russia

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August 2024 FSB introduced a 'counter-terrorism' operational regime in Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod Oblasts, imposing strict movement and communication restrictions.
August 2024 Ukrainian forces crossed into Kursk Oblast, revealing vulnerabilities in the FSB Border Guard's defense, with inexperienced conscripts suffering heavy losses.
March 22 2024 ISIS-K terrorists attacked Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, killing 144 and injuring 551, with the FSB later making unsubstantiated claims about Ukrainian involvement.
March 7 2024 US Embassy in Moscow warned of potential terrorist attacks, which Putin dismissed as 'provocative' three days before the Crocus City Hall attack.
January 2024 Russian-American ballet dancer Ksenia Karelina was arrested in Yekaterinburg and charged with 'treason' for sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine, ultimately sentenced to 12 years in prison.
2022 FSB officers reportedly carried out filtration activities in Mariupol during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, involving searches, interrogations, forced deportations, beatings, and torture.
April 11 2022 Beseda was reportedly transferred to Lefortovo Prison, and over 100 FSB agents from the Fifth Service were reportedly sacked.
March 2022 Ukrainian intelligence intercepted unencrypted FSB communications and publicly released the names and details of 620 alleged FSB agents.
March 11 2022 Fifth Service head Sergey Beseda and deputy Anatoly Bolyukh were placed under house arrest due to intelligence failures regarding the Ukraine invasion.
February 2022 Intelligence agencies reported FSB plans to replace elected leaders of Ukraine with Ukrainians living in Russia before the invasion.
2021 Ukrainian intelligence released information and recordings of 18th Center FSB officers based in Crimea, exposing their involvement in the 'Gamaredon' hacking group.
August 2021 FSB arrested Alexander Kuranov, a plasma physics expert and chief designer of the Hypersonic Systems Research Center, on suspicion of passing secret hypersonic technology information to a foreigner.
July 2021 FSB Ukraine team greatly expanded, growing to around 200 officers by February 2022.
March 4 2021 Sergei Alpatov becomes acting head of the Economic Security Service on March 4, 2021, following Sergei Korolev.
February 24 2021 Sergei Korolev was appointed as the First Deputy Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
2020 U.S. government documented FSB-linked cyber units attempting to penetrate state and local government networks, highlighting the organization's domestic and foreign cyber intrusion capabilities.
August 2020 FSB agents were implicated by Bellingcat and The Insider in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a flight.
2017 U.S. government indicted 18th Center FSB officers for breaching Yahoo and millions of email accounts, revealing the FSB's extensive cyber intelligence operations.
September 2017 WikiLeaks releases 'Spy Files Russia', exposing how Peter-Service company assists state entities in gathering mobile phone user data through the SORM surveillance system in collaboration with the FSB.
December 29 2016 The White House sanctioned the FSB for alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election, with the US State Department declaring 35 Russian diplomats and officials persona non-grata.
January 2016 Grigory Rodchenkov, head of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, fled Russia and exposed the state-sponsored doping program involving FSB members replacing tainted urine samples.
2014 FSB devoted substantial resources to preparing for a Russian takeover of Ukraine, with its Fifth Service targeting Ukraine specifically.
June 2014 Implementation of SORM-3 surveillance system begins, which integrates all telecommunication services in real time, expanding the FSB's online monitoring capabilities.
February 2012 FSB reported the sentencing of an engineer from Plesetsk Cosmodrome to 13 years in prison for selling strategic missile system testing information to the CIA.
2011 FSB claimed to have exposed 199 foreign spies, including 41 professional spies and 158 agents employed by foreign intelligence services.
2011 FSB prevented 94 'crimes of a terrorist nature', including foiling a planned suicide bombing in Moscow on New Year's Eve.
2010 Russian forces led by the FSB eliminated the top-level leadership of the Chechen insurgency, with the exception of Dokka Umarov.
July 2010 President Dmitry Medvedev expanded the FSB's powers in counterterrorism efforts. The new bill granted FSB officers the authority to issue warnings to citizens and arrest individuals for up to 15 days for non-compliance, drawing criticism from human rights organizations.
March 2010 Islamist militants conducted the Moscow Metro bombings, killing 40 people. One blast occurred at Lubyanka station near the FSB headquarters. Militant leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the attacks.

This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Federal Security Service, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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