The Soviet KGB’s elite Ninth Directorate was responsible for leadership protection and well as guarding the Kremlin, Communist Party headquarters and other special sites. Learn how the KGB created not only the world’s top intelligence and counterintelligence services, but also a first-class bodyguard unit.
A study of the history of personal protection in the USSR shows a clear tendency: if a good relationship developed between the principal and the chief of a detail, then the latter stayed loyal to him to the end, even after his death. And the other way around: arrogance, fault-finding, and ingratitude in communication with officers of the security detail could, at a tough moment, leave the leader of a vast country alone with his problems and his enemies.