Officers of the FSB’s Second Service, which has been linked to poisonings and surveillance of opposition figures, were involved in Russia’s doping program. The Insider reported this, citing sources.
According to the outlet, RUSADA forensic expert Dmitry Kovalev, who argued in 2020 before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne against WADA sanctions, is a colonel in the FSB’s Second Service and the civil partner of Veronika Loginova, the new director general of RUSADA.
“Kovalev is just one of many examples of officers from the FSB’s Second Service directly connected to the doping program. Apparently, an entire department in the Directorate for the Protection of the Constitutional Order was engaged in this activity,” The Insider writes.
According to the publication, Kovalev was tied to a broader scheme that took shape after Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, left in 2015 and gave testimony in the United States about the scale of Russia’s doping program. The Insider claims that after this, the program was moved to the Signal research center, which is connected to the development of toxic substances, including Novichok and epibatidine.
A source cited by the outlet says that poison synthesis and doping production were two entirely unrelated programs, but that the same scientists may have worked on various Signal projects using the same equipment. According to these claims, the decision to move the doping project to Signal was made “at the very highest level.” Viktor Taranchenko, a chemical weapons specialist whom The Insider identified during its investigation into the Skripal poisoning, was appointed to head the doping laboratory.
The FSB’s Second Service is responsible for combating “ideological diversions.” It is currently described as monitoring activists, pursuing “extremism” cases, and taking part in labeling organizations as “undesirable” and “foreign agents.” Media reports have said that officers from this service were behind the organization of the poisonings of Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza. The Bell previously reported that in 2025 the service became the curator of blocking in the Russian segment of the internet.