FSB Counterintelligence Service
Identity
This record most plausibly maps to the FSB Counterintelligence Service as a central-apparatus service, not a clearly separate publicly identified campus. A 2015 Rossiyskaya Gazeta document lists the Counterintelligence Service among named FSB services, and the UK government’s FSB malign-activity factsheet places FSB Centre 18 inside the FSB 1st Service, identified there as the Counter-intelligence Service. ([rg.ru](https://rg.ru/documents/2015/12/28/fsb-dok.html))
Moscow site
The only directly corroborated fixed site tied to this record in open sources is the Information Security Center (TsIB/18th Center), military unit 64829. Registry mirrors identify unit 64829 / 18th Center at 2 Bolshaya Lubyanka, Moscow, and commercial city mapping places an FSB facility at the same address, consistent with the Lubyanka complex. ([rupep.org](https://rupep.org/ru/company/28390))
Role
RBC described TsIB as part of the FSB Counterintelligence Service and said it handles cybercrime and high-technology investigations, protection of state secrets, and work tied to critical information infrastructure, including the state system for detecting and responding to computer attacks (GosSOPKA). The UK government separately identifies Centre 18 as subordinate to the Counterintelligence Service and links it to cyber-espionage activity. ([rbc.ru](https://www.rbc.ru/newspaper/2017/07/31/5979f6339a7947102993ac64))
Leadership
The most recent explicit public appointment confirmation located in this review is President Putin’s 7 April 2015 appointment of Lt. Gen. Vladislav Menshchikov as head of the FSB Counterintelligence Service. For the subordinate 18th Center, RBC reported Sergey Skorokhodov’s appointment in July 2017, and current registry mirrors continue to list him as head of unit 64829. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/politika/1884841?utm_source=openai))
Observable capability
Centre 18 is the clearest open-source-observable capability node under this service. U.S. prosecutors identified FSB Center 18 officers in the 2017 Yahoo intrusion case and again in a 2023 spear-phishing case; the UK says Star Blizzard was almost certainly subordinate to Centre 18 and attributes targeting of UK political figures and organizations from at least 2015 to 2023 to that relationship. ([justice.gov](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/us-charges-russian-fsb-officers-and-their-criminal-conspirators-hacking-yahoo-and))