According to the country’s news agencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin has directed security forces to maintain tighter social control and hunt down “traitors, spies, and saboteurs.” He has also ordered the fortification of Russia’s borders.
Speaking on Security Services Day, which is widely observed in Russia, Putin gave his security officials orders on Monday to guard the borders, tighten social control, and make the best possible “use of the operational, technical, and personnel potential” to fend off threats from the outside world and internal traitors.
Putin was quoted as saying, “Maximum composure, concentration of forces is now necessary from counterintelligence services, especially military intelligence.”
The acts of foreign special services must be forcefully suppressed, and traitors, spies, and saboteurs must be rapidly found, according to TASS.
He added that Russia’s frontiers must also be fortified.
The Federal Security Service [FSB] and border services must do more work, according to Putin, who was quoted as stating this on Monday by Russia’s state-run RIA news agency.
And the boundary needs to be consistently covered. Whatever forces and tools we have at our disposal, like as mobile action units and special forces, must be used to rapidly and effectively thwart any attempts to violate it, he said.
Putin also stated that it is the responsibility of special security agencies to guarantee the protection of residents in the Ukrainian territories that Moscow claimed had been absorbed into Russia in September. The actions have been condemned as illegal annexations by Kiev and its Western supporters.
Putin promised them additional “modern equipment and weapons” and said, “It is your job to do all necessary to secure them security to the maximum, respect for their rights and freedoms.”
Putin’s remarks come as Russian missile attacks on Ukraine have stepped up and there is no sign of an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has been going on for ten months at this point.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, continued to call on his country’s allies to arm his forces with more weaponry while speaking to the leaders of numerous NATO nations on Monday via video link.
“Russian aggression must and can be stopped. And our job right now is to speed it up,” he told the gathered NATO leaders in Riga, Latvia.
In a late-night speech on Sunday, Zelenskyy claimed that nine million of the estimated 40 million people in Ukraine now have access to electricity following Russia’s missile strike last week that targeted water and energy facilities.
Also on Monday, Zelenskyy was charged with having “lack of grasp of the significance of the occasion and lack of compassion for his people,” according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
In an interview with Belarus 1 TV in Minsk, Lavrov also launched a scathing rhetorical assault against the West and what he called their “hysterical attitude” to the crisis in Ukraine.
The Russian foreign minister was quoted by TASS as stating that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine had shattered the “geopolitical games of the West,” which sought to make Ukraine a constant threat to Russia.
At a year-end press conference on Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed sorrow over his expectation that the conflict in Ukraine “would continue”.
In the near future, Guterres remarked, “I am not hopeful about the possibility of meaningful peace discussions.”
