Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting on Police Day in Moscow. (MIKHAIL METZEL/AFP/Getty Images)

The Russian private security industry, which was last estimated to be worth more than $7 billion a year, has gone through a series of reforms and shakeups since the anarchic 1990s. Nonetheless, it is a lucrative business sector that has not only seen an increased role played by major, state-affiliated corporations but also a renewed drive by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) to divert some of the profits into its own coffers.

Since 2005, the MVD has had its own private security corporation, FGUP Okhrana, which rents out the services of police officers of the so-called Extradepartment Guard Service (Vnevedomstvennaya okhrana). Local and central police commands get extra resources to put to other uses—FGUP Okhrana brings in annual profits of about 200 million rubles (around $6 million), but this is only a fraction of the funds which accrue to the commands—and customers get officers with greater powers of arrest and heavier firepower than regular security guards.

However, FGUP Okhrana has already been the subject of controversy, with allegations in some quarters that it virtually operates as a state protection racket, while competitors complain that the MVD—which also inspects and issues permits to private security firms—uses its position to squeeze them out of certain markets. Indeed, in 2012, the Federal Antimonopoly Service issued a judgment to the effect that Okhrana had violated federal competition law.

Rivalries over control of FGUP Okhrana and questions about its management even played a role in the unceremonious dismissal of St. Petersburg police chief General Mikhail Sukhodolsky in 2012.

In the latest twist, the MVD has drafted an amendment to the Law on Police that would mean Russian officials other than the handful of key figures who are guarded by the Federal Protection Service (Russia’s Secret Service) would be able to hire police for their own security and that of their property and families—but that they would have to pay for the privilege.

This will especially affect local governors. While some, such as Kaliningrad’s Nikolai Tsukanov, employ minimal security, others feel the need to employ more extensive protection. Last year, for example, Mikhail Yurevich, then the governor of Chelyabinsk region, issued a tender for a round-the-clock security detail of around a hundred officers, with an annual budget of 109 million rubles (over $3 million).

These are not inconsiderable sums, and should go help strengthen FGUP Okhrana’s balance book. Meanwhile, the news that a man who shot and killed two parishioners at a Sakhalin church earlier this month worked for a private security firm has already been used by voices close to the MVD to argue for greater restrictions on the sector. These restrictions would inevitably make it harder for private operators to compete with the Extradepartmental Guard. They would also mean that—at a time when stresses between provincial elites and Moscow look set again to resurface—local interests will become increasingly beholden to the MVD for their security. As ever, politics, security and business combine in Putin’s Russia.