MOSCOW — When President Vladimir V. Putin in July ordered American diplomatic missions in Russia to slash their staff by 755 employees, the State Department said it would need time to assess the “impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it.”
Part of that response has now become clear: To make up for the loss of security guards axed in the Russian-mandated staff cuts, Washington has hired a private Russian company that grew out of a security business co-founded by Mr. Putin’s former K.G.B. boss, an 82-year-old veteran spy who spent 25 years planting agents in Western security services and hunting down their operatives.
Under a $2.8 million no-bid contract awarded by the Office of Acquisitions in Washington, security guards at the American Embassy in Moscow and at consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok will be provided by Elite Security Holdings, a company closely linked to the former top K.G.B. figure, Viktor G. Budanov, a retired general who rose through the ranks to become head of Soviet counterintelligence.
A State Department official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with the department’s rules, said that Elite Security and individuals associated with it had been “vetted” with “relevant national and local agencies” and would not increase the threat risk.
“U.S. missions around the world work constantly under intelligence and physical security threats,” the official said. “This contract does not change that fact.”
Russian company records show that Mr. Budanov, who retired from espionage in 1992 after becoming upset by Russia’s direction under its first post-Soviet leader, Boris N. Yeltsin, is a former minority owner of at least three of Elite’s branches — in Moscow, in the Volga region and in western Russia. Records indicate that he no longer holds any ownership stake, but Kommersant, a Russian business newspaper, has reported that the company’s head office in Moscow is run by his son, Dimitri.
