Russia’s media regulator to arm security guards at Moscow headquarters
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal media regulator, will arm security guards at its central office on Kitaigorodsky Proezd in Moscow, according to a tender for security services at the agency’s main office spotted by the independent Russian news outlet Verstka.
The tender’s technical specifications call for the guards to be armed with 9 mm Makarov pistols and equipped with rubber batons, handcuffs, and a metal detector.
Two armed guards will protect Roskomnadzor’s main office around the clock, while a third guard carrying a baton will work daytime hours on weekdays. All three will be required to monitor the area around the building, “paying attention to suspicious individuals and the possibility of explosives being planted.”
The results of the tender will be announced on November 2. The contract with the winning bidder will run for six months, during which Roskomnadzor plans to spend up to 17.2 million rubles on armed guards. The guard equipped with non-lethal gear is expected to cost an additional 3.5 million rubles.
Roskomnadzor has allocated more than 108 million rubles in total for security at its 26 offices across Russia. Only the guards at the main building in Moscow will carry firearms.
This is the first time that security guards at the Roskomnadzor building have been issued firearms. In previous years, they went on duty equipped with non-lethal gear, according to tenders posted on the state procurement portal.
In January, the anonymous Russian Telegram channel VChK-OGPU reported that a 16-year-old identified as Artyom A. had been arrested on suspicion of murdering senior Roskomnadzor official Alexei Belyaev, whose subordinates were responsible for blocking. The murder took place at the checkpoint of Roskomnadzor’s main building on Kitaigorodsky Proezd, where the teenager attacked Belyaev with a knife.
In the spring, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had foiled a terrorist attack targeting Roskomnadzor’s leadership. Seven people were reportedly detained in Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, and Yaroslavl.
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