Putin, focused on Ukraine, relegates the escalation of terrorist acts in Russia to the background

With at least 20 dead – 15 of them security agents – the terrorist attack carried out this Sunday against several churches and synagogues in the Caucasian region of Dagestan has been one of the worst attacks suffered by Russia in recent years. The tragedy has also occurred, just a couple of weeks after the country was shocked by a hostage taking by prisoners of the Islamic State (ISIS) in a prison in the southern city of Rostov on Don, and three months after the barbarism committed by the same Islamist group in the Crocus concert hall, on the outskirts of Moscow, where 145 people lost their lives. However, President Vladimir Putin, absolutely absorbed by his invasion of Ukraine, has chosen to relegate this terrorist escalation to the background.

“No. At the moment, no,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Monday when asked by Russian media whether Putin planned to address his people. The attack has not yet been claimed by any terrorist organization and the only mentions of the event on the Kremlin website have been the condolences offered to the president by the presidents of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyóyev, and of Azerbaijan, Kassym-Jomart Tokáyev, in separate conversations telephones.

As a comparison, the last attack on Russian soil of this caliber – Crocus aside – took place in the St. Petersburg subway 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 event that same day, now rules out commenting on the attack that occurred this Sunday in Dagestan and has not set foot on the Crocus hall facilities since the tragedy occurred 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 was learned that this Sunday’s Dagestan attackers had been preparing the assault since at least mid-May, according to the Telegram channel shotspecialized in police leaks.

Added to this event is the astonishing ease with which on June 16, six members of the Islamic State took several employees of the Rostov-on-Don prison hostage in which they remained prisoners. According to the official version, they broke the bars on their windows and went down several floors before silently capturing their own guards. However, this explanation raised doubts even among the Russian elite, who were struck by the ease with which the terrorists moved and the outfits they carried with them.

“Where did those demons get the phones from? Where did they get the Islamic State flags from? “Why didn’t they shave their beards—as prison rules dictate?” State Duma deputy Yevgeny Popov asked on Telegram. His question was shared by other parliamentarians such as Alexander Jinshtéin.

Police shortage

Likewise, the authorities themselves recognize that there is a lack of police in a country where spy and military organizations, such as the National Guard—a separate army that only obeys the president—have thousands of troops. “There are 150,000 police officers missing,” said the president of the Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko, on Monday. “A district police officer works for four, ten, and the salary he receives is not competitive at all, often lower than that of a courier or a taxi driver,” she added.

The integration of terrorism into social structures is another concern of the authorities. Three of the attackers killed in Dagestan were sons and nephews of the current head of the Sergokalinskiy district, Magomed Omarov. Furthermore, another of the dead terrorists, Ali Zakarigayev, had been the leader of the Just Russia party Patriots for Truth – one of the few groups with a presence in the State Duma – in that same district until two years ago.

Indeed, Zakarigayev’s father, of the same name, had been placed in preventive detention along with 35 other people two months ago for an alleged fraud of 2.8 billion rubles, 2.8 million euros, in the local energy company Dagenergo., as revealed by the independent media Russian Agentsvo.

Despite the Kremlin’s apparent appeasement of the Caucasus, the threat of a resurgence of violence remains latent. With the resurgence of secessionist movements in the regions of the Caucasus after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, in the last decade there has been the proliferation of jihadist cells in the region. The Federal Security Service (FSB, heir to the KGB) often reports arrests and “liquidations” of people – a euphemism for the authorities – linked to the Islamic State.

Agents of the omnipresent security agency killed on May 17 a soldier from the Russian 49th Army who had defected to the Islamic State and was preparing an attack in the Caucasian region of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, according to the channel Asset. And on March 7, weeks before the Crocus hall attack, the FSB announced that it had eliminated a cell of the Islamic State of Khorasan in the Kaluga region – the same jihadist faction that would later attack in full concert – whose objective was a Moscow synagogue.

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

Russian authorities fear that the attacks will shake stability that is already fragile due to the war in Ukraine. “They are trying to destabilize the social situation,” the governor of Dagestan, Sergei Melíkov, condemned through his social networks after the attacks occurred. At that time the police were arresting a group of men in the city of Pyatigorsk, also in southern Russia, this Sunday. His provocation, dancing in the street lezginka, a traditional Caucasian dance, at the time when Russian forces faced attackers in Dagestan. “Why are these happy…? For the death of children, police officers and civilians? “Lamented the mayor of the town, Dmitri Voroshilov, through his social networks.

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