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VLADIMIR Putin’s attack dog – who fired the first shot of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – is leading his peace talks.
Sergei Beseda, 70, is cleaning up his mess after the former KGB agent was imprisoned by his boss for bungling the hostile takeover.
Nicknamed The Baron, the formerly influential spy was responsible for leading the FSB team that assured the dictator Ukraine would easily fall apart once tanks moved across its borders.
However, Vlad’s incursion has led to three years of embarrassment for the Russian forces, facing fierce resistance from the courageous Ukrainians, rather than the anticipated swift “three-day” conflict.
Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist, revealed that Beseda had been imprisoned in 2022 through his FSB sources.
Bad intelligence for his master had sent Beseda to a jail used in Stalin-era purges for mass executions.
Beseda was freed soon after and is now walking through the gilded halls of the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at the ceasefire talks.
He’s attempting to salvage his reputation and help Vlad rebuild the Soviet Empire – a dream the allies share.
Soldatov shared with The Sun that the re-engagement of the spy signifies a daunting strategy employed by Putin—humiliating his confidants to maintain dominance over them.
Soldatov said: “For Putin, it is very, very important when dealing with an ambitious guy, to have him insulted and humiliated to keep him loyal.”
Vlad notoriously embarrassed the head of his foreign intelligence service in 2022 in front of cameras by making him fluster and telling him to “speak directly”.
But Soldatov, a non-resident senior fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis, said that humiliation had made Beseda the ideal person for Putin to lead Russian ceasefire talks.
Beseda is extremely loyal to Vlad, an expert on America from his time in the FSB, and a villain in the eyes of Ukraine.
The Colonel-General is extremely experienced and has held the general rank for 25 years.
He served inside the Kremlin and the Putin’s administration in the early 2000s, making him a key ally.
Soldatov said: “He’s from this old guard of the FSB/ KGB, people, and that’s that is his reputation.
“But there is something else here, and I think the FSB chose him because they wanted to play quite a nasty game with the Ukrainians.”
Putin’s believes Ukraine’s government is illegitimate – and Beseda is the manifestation of that belief in a person.
The spy was at the side of Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych during the Maidan bloodbath when cops shot at protesters.
Soldatov said Vlad was effectively saying with his inclusion: “‘Look we have always been interfering in your political situation because we do not treat you as a proper, independent country.
“‘See that guy? He’s been doing that for his well for decades, and we still use him’.”
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Chief Kyrylo Budanov said of Beseda in 2023: “He is a very problematic person. He has done a lot of evil for Ukraine.”
Soldatov said that Beseda’s importance in the talks shows how important spies are now for Russia’s foreign policy.
Hostage snatching, of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich for example, is now an important part of Russia’s conduct with foreign countries.
In a twist of fate, Beseda was sent to the notorious Lefortovo prison in Moscow which was used during Josef Stalin’s Great Purge for mass executions and where Gershkovich was held.
Officially, Beseda was arrested for “the theft of funds allocated for subversive and intelligence work in Ukraine, as well as deliberately false information about the political situation in Ukraine.”
After his humiliation Beseda could be brought back to working for Putin as, in the Kremlin’s version of events, the invasion had been a triumph.
So, there was no reason to punish anyone – let alone the most powerful people in Russia’s FSB and supporters of Putin.
But Beseda was brought back to an undefined role – the assistant to the FSB director.
Soldatov said: “You don’t really have any any powers or responsibilities. You just a guy who’s extremely close to director and up to director to decide what you’re gonna do next morning.”
Beseda could walk away from his involvement with politics, but he has another motivation, Soldatov has revealed.
The FSB General has a son, Alexander, working high inside Russian national security.
The Russian delegation also includes Grigory Karasin, 75, a Russian senator and career diplomat.
Who is Sergei Beseda?
Beseda headed the Fifth Service within the FSB – the secretive unit in charge of spying on ex-Soviet countries.
The powerful force is Putin’s baby, having been founded by Vlad when he was the head of the FSB in the late 1990s.
Its job is to promote the Kremlin’s interests in important countries and also oversee connections with foreign partners, including the US.
He reportedly spent a lot of time abroad from Russia in his youth in Latin America and as such speaks Spanish.
As such, it was Beseda’s job to organise the crushing of the colour revolutions that sought to expel Moscow’s influence through the 2000s and 2010s.
His agents were caught in countries like Belarus, Moldova, and Abkhazia, a breakaway region in Georgia, the Center for European Policy Analysis says.
Beseda himself was in Kyiv during the bloodiest days of the Maidan Revolution and Ukrainian authorities sought to arrest him for crimes against protesters.
