Putin focuses on Ukraine, pushing rise in terrorist activity in Russia into background | International

The terrorist attack on several churches and synagogues in the Caucasian region of Dagestan this Sunday, which killed at least 20 people – 15 of them security agents – is one of the worst attacks Russia has suffered in recent years. The tragedy also comes just weeks after the country was shocked by the hostage-taking of Islamic State (ISIS) prisoners in a prison…

The terrorist attack on several churches and synagogues in the Caucasian region of Dagestan this Sunday, which killed at least 20 people – 15 of whom were security agents – is one of the worst attacks suffered by Russia in recent years. The tragedy also comes just weeks after the country was shocked by the hostage-taking by Islamic State (ISIS) prisoners in a prison in the southern city of Rostov on Don, and three months after the barbarism committed by the same Islamist group at the Crocus Concert Hall on the outskirts of Moscow, where 145 people lost their lives. However, President Vladimir Putin, completely absorbed by his invasion of Ukraine, has chosen to push this terrorist escalation into the background.

“No. At the moment, no,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday when asked by Russian media if Putin planned to address his people. The attack has not yet been claimed by any terrorist organization and the only mention of the incident on the Kremlin website was a series of condolences expressed to the president separately by Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Azerbaijan’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in telephone conversations.

As a comparison, the last attack of this caliber on Russian soil – excluding Crocus – took place in the St. Petersburg metro on April 3, 2017, when a Russian-Uzbek citizen killed 15 people with a bomb on public transport. Putin, who visited the scene of the incident that same day, is now refusing to comment on the attack in Dagestan this Sunday and has not set foot in the Crocus Hall facilities since the tragedy in March.

The war in Ukraine consumes a large part of the resources available to Russian intelligence. Washington warned Moscow that Islamic terrorism was preparing a series of attacks on its territory before the Crocus tragedy, and this Monday it became known that according to the Telegram channel, this Sunday’s Dagestan attackers had been preparing the attack since at least mid-May. shotSpecializing in police leaks.

The incident involves the surprising ease with which on June 16 six members of the Islamic State took hostage several employees of the Rostov-on-Don prison in which they remained prisoners. According to the official version, they broke the bars on their windows and silently went down several floors before their own guards captured them. However, this explanation also raised doubts among the Russian elite, who were surprised by the ease of movement of the terrorists and the outfits they carried with them.

“Where did those monsters get the phones? Where did they get the Islamic State flags? Why didn’t they shave their beards, as is required by prison rules?” State Duma deputy Yevgeny Popov asked on Telegram. His question was shared by other lawmakers, such as Alexander Zinstein.

Shortage of police

Likewise, officials themselves admit there is a police shortage in a country where detective and military organizations, such as the National Guard – a separate army that obeys only the president – have tens of thousands of soldiers. “150,000 police officers are missing,” Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Monday. “A district police officer works for four, ten people and the salary he receives is not at all competitive, often even less than a courier or taxi driver,” she added.

The integration of terrorism into social structures is another concern of the authorities. The three attackers killed in Dagestan were the son and nephew of the current head of the Sergokalinsky district, Magomed Omarov. In addition, one of the killed militants, Ali Zakarigayev, was until two years ago the leader of the Just Russia party Patriots for Truth – one of the few groups with a presence in the State Duma – in the same district.

Indeed, Zakarigayev’s father, of the same name, was placed in preventive detention two months ago along with 35 others for alleged fraud worth 2.8 billion rubles, 2.8 million euros, at local energy company Dzenergo., As revealed by independent media Russian agent.

Despite the Kremlin’s apparent appeasement of the Caucasus, the threat of a resurgence of violence remains lurking. Jihadist cells have proliferated in the region over the past decade, with the resurgence of separatist movements in regions of the Caucasus after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Federal Security Service (FSB, successor to the KGB) frequently reports arrests and “liquidations” of people linked to Islamic State – a euphemism for the authorities.

According to the channel, agents of the ubiquitous security agency on May 17 killed a soldier of the Russian 49th Army who had joined the Islamic State and was preparing an attack in the Caucasian region of Karachaevo-Cherkessia. Property. And on March 7, a few weeks before the Crocus Hall attack, the FSB announced it had dismantled a cell of the Islamic State of Khorasan in the Kaluga region — the same jihadist group that would later attack In Full Concerto — whose target was the Moscow synagogue.

Similarly, although the Kremlin has tried to link the March attack in some way with its enemy Ukraine, the FSB itself announced on April 1 the arrests of several citizens in Dagestan who “directly participated in the financing and provision of terrorist funds to the perpetrators of the terrorist act committed at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow on March 22, 2024.”

Russian authorities fear that these attacks will shake an already fragile situation due to the war in Ukraine. “They are trying to destabilize the social situation,” Dagestan Governor Sergei Melnikov denounced through his social networks after the attacks. At the time the police were arresting a group of people in the city of Pyatigorsk in southern Russia this Sunday. His provocation, dancing in the street Lezginkaa traditional Caucasian dance, at a time when Russian forces faced aggressors in Dagestan. “Why are they happy…? “For the death of children, police officers and civilians?” the city’s mayor Dmitry Voroshilov expressed condolences through his social networks.

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