European Central: How The Tragic Moscow Attacks Expose the Weakness of Putin’s Security State
Olga maltseva i afp/getty
On March 22, at approximately 8:00 pm Moscow time, a group of terrorists affiliated with the Islamic State, Khorasan Province launched a terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall, an auditorium in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk. This attack, which killed 143 and wounded over twice that number according to Russian investigators, is the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia since the Beslan school siege of 2004. Coming so soon after the Russian elections, there were at first suspicions that this attack may have been connected to the Putin regime in some way, but the ISIS-K claims of responsibility have been independently verified by American intelligence services, according to Reuters. Putin, however, has given indications that he plans to blame the attack on Ukraine, with Director Alexander Bortnikov of the FSB, the Russian State Security Service, alleging that “We believe that the action was prepared by both the Islamist radicals themselves and was facilitated by western special services”, according to The Guardian.
However, behind these claims is a deflection from the Putin regime’s failure to prevent this attack. On March 7th, the United States warned Russia through diplomatic channels that an attack by ISIS-K was imminent and they shared intelligence reports with Russian officials confirming that warning under the “Duty to Warn” doctrine. Russian officials also received warnings from Canada, the United Kingdom, and, allegedly, the UAE. However, these warnings were dismissed by Putin just three days before the attack, with the BBC reporting that he referred to these warnings as “outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society” to a gathering of the board of the FSB, reminding them that their top priority was to support the “special military operation”, Putin’s euphemistic moniker for the invasion of Ukraine. While arguably, current global events mean that any warning from a Western intelligence agency would be less trustworthy at its face, the fact that the FSB appears to have failed to do basic due diligence toward these warnings is a worrying sign for the Putin regime.
The attackers themselves, ISIS-K, are not new actors in this field. This group, a breakoff faction of the notorious Islamic State terrorist group, has been active in the Khorasan Province of Afghanistan since the mid-2010s and has primarily carried out attacks in Afghanistan, such as the 2020 Kabul University bombing and the 2022 Airport Suicide bombing that killed 13 US military personal during the evacuation of Kabul. Since their founding, they have been in active conflict with numerous other radical factions, including the Taliban, who, since taking over the Afghan government, have waged a protracted, low-intensity counterterrorism campaign against them.
For this group, the Crocus City Hall attack was a dramatic departure from their previous attacks. Parallels are already being drawn to the 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris, specifically, the Bataclan theater massacre, whose perpetrators used a similar methodology against a similar target. However, there are notable differences between the attacks, among them being the response of the authorities. In the Moscow attack, it took over an hour for the first police units to arrive in response to the shooting, allowing the attackers to set fire to the building and escape. According to the Russian government, however, the attackers have since been detained, with the four suspected assailants being detained in possession of Tajik passports. The alleged attackers appeared in court in Moscow on the 24th, with three of them pleading guilty to the charges of terrorism, though they showed signs of torture in court. Analysis conducted by the New York Times shows that the four suspects are wearing clothing that matches those worn by the attackers in the Crocus City Concert Hall attack and in propaganda footage of it published by ISIS-K.
ISIS-K has sought to capitalize on the attack through its various propaganda apparatuses. Using the same strategy employed by the ISIS caliphate in the 2010s, the attack is used as a symbol of their strength and is used to radicalize and recruit militants through the internet. They have portrayed the attack against Russia as an attack against the primary oppressor of Muslims in Central Asia, a charge they have leveled against Russia frequently in their propaganda over the last two years, according to Reuters. Part of their rationale for this may be closer to home, as the group courts Central Asian militants with grievances against Russia dating back to the brutal Chechen wars that raged from the 1990s to the late 2000s.
Despite this, the Putin regime has been notably unfocused on this re-emerging threat, still seeking to tie this attack in some way to Ukraine and its Western allies. As of the publishing of this article, we lack enough data points from the Russian populace to know if this message is landing, but what it does tell us is how much the ongoing invasion of Ukraine has weakened the infamous Russian security state. And the security state, to some degree, is the fount from which Putin derives his legitimacy and authority as the de facto dictator of Russia. Its failure is to some degree his failure. And while internal repression has so far kept a lid on major public opposition, cracks in the facade, such as the massive turnout for the funeral of murdered opposition leader Alexei Navalny, are starting to show. While we can only speculate on the exact motivations of Putin and his inner circle in their response to this attack and lack of response to the warning of it, their reactions have, to some degree, shaken the foundations of the Regime. When Putin was first elected as the president of Russia, he based his campaign around economic reconstruction, an end to Chechen terrorism, and the triumphant return of Russia to the world stage. This promise of peace and prosperity has now curdled into an unpopular and losing invasion of a once-friendly neighbor that has left Russia more hemmed-in than ever both economically and politically, sanctions that have left permanent scars on the Russian economy, and dreams of revanchist glory that grow more tarnished by the day. Now, the very terrorism Putin promised to stamp out has returned in force. Even the regime’s most ardent supporters may begin to ask “How are we better off now?”. And for Putin, that is something he cannot afford.
