IGX

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.

...tasks previously handled by local guards hired directly by the embassy in Moscow, like screening visitors, will be taken over by Elite Security employees. Hiring guards directly allowed closer monitoring of their backgrounds, but any Russian working for an American diplomatic mission, no matter how closely screened, is vulnerable to pressure from Russia’s state security apparatus.

Local guards are mostly restricted to the perimeter of diplomatic compounds and do not generally have access to secure areas.