The Frankenstein Structure: A Bureaucratic Circus

5 min readAug 3, 2025

Three Agencies, Zero Coordination

You’ve got the FSB, the SVR, and the GRU — three egos in a trench coat pretending to be one hacker.

The FSB: Supposed to focus on domestic control, but they can’t resist sticking their fingers in foreign pies. Units 16 and 18 love to wreck Western infrastructure — right up until some other Russian agency steps in and torches the place.
The SVR: The stealth guys. Think long‑term espionage like SolarWinds. Except their “stealth” often gets nuked by their cousins at the FSB who’d rather wipe the same server clean for bragging rights.
The GRU: The military’s digital brawlers. Loud, destructive, and about as subtle as a chainsaw in a library. They’ll blow up a system the SVR just spent three years sneaking into.

They tried to create a unified Russian Cyber Command years ago. Big surprise — it collapsed faster than a Moscow high‑rise made of drywall. What’s left is the so‑called “Information Operations Troops,” which has about as much authority as a mall cop with a broken whistle.

The Proxy Free‑For‑All: Russia’s Digital Wild West

Russia’s secret weapon? Outsourcing chaos to the lowest bidder.

Private tech firms: Companies like NTC Vulkan and Positive Technologies pretend to be normal businesses while moonlighting as state cyber‑arms dealers. They write the malware, then sell it back to the Kremlin like it’s a bake sale.
Criminal gangs: Trickbot, Conti, BlackBasta — you name it. Sometimes “patriots,” sometimes pure mercenaries, always chasing the ruble. They’ll hack Ukraine on Monday and run a ransomware scam against a Russian hospital on Tuesday.
Hacktivist clowns: Groups like CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn crank out “patriotic” hacks between Telegram shitposts. State‑backed one day, raided the next.

This “nesting doll” ecosystem looks impressive on PowerPoints. In practice, it’s like hiring the local mafia to babysit your kids — you’ll come home to find the TV gone and the fridge full of vodka.

Chaos in the Field: When the Hackers Hack Themselves

The DNC Debacle

2016 was their high point — and even then, it was a facepalm. GRU (APT28) and SVR (APT29) both broke into the DNC like two burglars robbing the same house without realizing the other’s there. Result: burned tools, blown cover, and the FBI laughing all the way to the evidence locker.

Ukraine: The Cyber Keystone Cops

Fast forward to the Ukraine war.

The FSB: “Let’s wipe their data!”
The SVR: “No, idiots, we need that data!”
The GRU: “Screw it, blow up the servers!”

So instead of a coordinated cyber blitz, you got Russians nuking their own intelligence ops while Ukrainian defenders swept up their sloppy footprints. The grand cyber war turned into a slapstick routine starring three rival agencies tripping over the same ethernet cables.

Propaganda with Malware on the Side

Russia’s cyberwar isn’t just about hacking systems — it’s about hacking brains. Fake news, deepfakes, social media bots, you name it.

Disinformation campaigns like Operation Doppelgänger pump out lies faster than a Kremlin press briefing.
Cyberattacks are staged to back up propaganda — like knocking out Ukrainian telecoms while blasting fake stories about government collapse.
Private PR firms crank out “patriotic” content so artificial it makes canned spam look authentic.

It’s digital whack‑a‑mole: every time defenders swat one fake narrative, ten more crawl out of some troll farm in St. Petersburg.

Impact: More Own‑Goals Than Goals

Burning Their Own Tools

These geniuses keep reusing the same malware until it’s as recognizable as a McDonald’s logo. Ukraine and the West patch it, block it, and turn it into a case study by lunchtime.

Collateral Clown Show

NotPetya was meant to cripple Ukraine. Instead, it spread like herpes at spring break — wrecking global corporations, crashing shipping firms, and even costing Russian businesses billions. A cyber boomerang if there ever was one.

Rivalries Over Results

Half the time, the agencies aren’t even fighting NATO — they’re fighting each other for Putin’s love and a bigger slice of the corruption pie. National security? That’s just the excuse scribbled in the budget request.

The Kremlin’s Biggest Enemy: Itself

Here’s the kicker: Russia is dangerous. They’ve got the talent, the tools, and the proxies. But they’re also their own worst enemy — blowing ops for bragging rights, leaking tradecraft through sloppy overlaps, and treating the cyber battlefield like a Moscow nightclub at closing time.

So yeah, the “Russian cyber juggernaut” is still out there, stomping around. But look closer: it’s stomping mostly on its own feet.

If you’re enjoying the content on my blog and would like to dive deeper into exclusive insights, I invite you to check out my Patreon page. It’s a space where you can support my work and get access to behind-the-scenes articles, in-depth analyses, and more. Your support helps me keep creating high-quality content and allows me to explore even more exciting topics. Visit [patreon.com/ChristianBaghai](https://www.patreon.com/ChristianBaghai) and join the community today! Thank you for being a part of this journey!

Christian Baghai | Patreon

Digital Iron Curtain: How Microsoft’s Sanctions Shutdown Exposed the Fragility of Russia’s Oil Outpost in India | Patreon

Russia vs Ukraine: How the World’s Biggest Cyber War Turned Into a Digital Farce | Patreon

Dmitry Medvedev: From “American Boy” to Nuclear Bluster — Russia’s Descent Into Farce | Patreon

Russia’s 2025 Demographic Crisis: A Comedy of Errors Without the Laugh Track | Patreon

Putin’s “Lost Sovereignty” Propaganda and the Kremlin’s Digital War on the EU: A 2025 Deep Dive | Patreon

Kremlin Digital Propaganda and Hybrid Warfare vs. the EU (2024–2025): The Freak Show Nobody Ordered | Patreon

Ukraine’s Drone Revolution of 2025: Tanks, Bombers, and Russia’s Delusions in the Age of $500 Death Machines | Patreon

Russia’s July 31, 2025 Barrage on Kyiv: Terror in High Definition | Patreon

Twitter/X in 2025: The Scam Circus They’re Calling a Platform | Patreon

How the Geneva Walkout Turned Russia’s Propaganda Into Global Silence | Patreon

Russia’s War Machine in Collapse: The Death of Colonel Lebedev and the Anatomy of Self-Destruction | Patreon