Russia is preparing legislation to set up private security firms using ex-soldiers and police to protect its oil, gas and mineral holdings in conflict zones abroad, a lawmaker and ex-KGB officer said in an interview.
Gennady Gudkov said up to 1,000 security personnel would operate along the lines of U.S. and British private security firms, said Gennady Gudkov, a deputy in Russia's lower house of parliament, known as the Duma.
"It will be expensive but unfortunately it is very necessary," said Gudkov, an influential member of the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party and a former KGB officer who sits on parliament's safety committee.
"As long as Russian firms are operating abroad, this is in the interest of the state," he told Reuters, referring to Russia's need to protect strategically important companies.
So far Russian companies have relied on local contractors from private security companies to guard oil fields and mines in Africa and the Middle East, but in future "this would be Russian citizens protecting Russian assets," Gudkov said.
He declined to estimate the cost of setting up such firms but said lawmakers intended to submit the proposal shortly to the Duma, and expect it to be passed in a year's time.
The bill would also need to be approved by the upper house and President Dmitry Medvedev.
CONTROVERSY
Private security contractors have raise controversy in conflict-ridden Iraq and Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai has placed a ban on the firms due to come into effect in December, much to the chagrin of the United States.
Some private security contractors have caused friction from involvement in high-profile shootings, sometimes affecting civilians, and other incidents and are often seen by local people as operating with impunity.
A spokesman for Russia's No. 2 oil firm LUKOIL, which has a 56.25% stake in the second phase of Iraq's giant West Qurna oilfield, said the idea of replacing local contractors with Russians was "an interesting proposal".
Russian aluminium giant RUSAL is the largest employer in Guinea where it refines bauxite used to make aluminium. It could not be reached for comment on whether it would use the proposed Russian security firms.
Guinea is the world's top exporter of aluminium ore bauxite and mining firms have had a rocky time since a 2008 military coup made violence commonplace in the west African nation.
Gudkov added that gas giant Gazprom, interested in Iran's South Pars field and whose oil arm Gazprom Neft also drills in Iraq, and Russian top oil firm Rosneft, which plans to drill in the Middle East, would most likely use local contractors, and not Russian, for the time being.
Adil Mukashev, an independent expert on terrorism issues based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, said the security firms will likely employ ex-military from Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus region, where an Islamist insurgency is raging.
"This will kill two birds with one stone — give men work in a region with high unemployment and drive them away from radical Islam," Mukashev told Reuters.
