A recent Atlantic Monthly article prompted some discussion over the continuation of the clan wars, but conspicuously absent from these exchanges was any mention of the key political prisoners held in the eye of the storm: Sergei Storchak and Alexander Bulbov. To understand whose fortunes are rising and falling among the warring siloviki, sometimes the best barometer we have is to track the cases of these unfortunate hostages. Yulia Latynina has a new column in the Moscow Times picking up where we’ve left off, and if she is right (which she may not be), it would confirm a theory I have heard various times that an entire bureaucratic agency was created for the sole purpose of spying on other siloviki rather than fighting the drug war. Now that Putin no longer has any need for the agency, it is being purged. Check out the original Cherkesov letter here.

Discarded Like A Worn-Out Pair of Shoes By Yulia Latynina The Federal Drug Control Service is purging its staff. The first to go was General Viktor Rykov, head of the agency’s internal affairs. Rykov is a friend and confidante of General Alexander Bulbov, a former senior officer with the drug control agency who was arrested in October on suspicion of wiretapping top-ranking siloviki.