Vladimir Putin has renamed the Federal Security Service Academy in honor of Felix Dzerzhinsky, according to a decree published on the Kremlin’s website.
The decree said the honorary designation was conferred in recognition of the academy staff’s service record.
The FSB Academy is the main higher-education institution of Russia’s security service. It bore Dzerzhinsky’s name from 1962 to 1993, when it was known as the KGB Higher School of the USSR.
“This is probably the first time Putin has publicly expressed an opinion on the figure of ‘Iron Felix,’” the independent Russian political newsletter Faridaily wrote. In 2025, Putin has expressed regret on several occasions over the demolition of the Dzerzhinsky monument in 1991. Russia’s Communist Party (KPRF) has been calling for the monument to be returned to Lubyanka Square, outside the FSB building.
Felix Dzerzhinsky was the founder and head of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, or Cheka, whose successors were the NKVD, the KGB, and Russia’s Federal Security Service. Dzerzhinsky organized the Red Terror that began after the 1917 revolution.
“The restoration of the Dzerzhinsky name to the FSB Academy is an important symbolic event that gives a clear picture of the ideals held by the most powerful people in Russia,” the independent Russian political newsletter Faridaily wrote.
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