Putin faces questions over Islamist ultimatum in Russia after upcoming attacks in Dagestan

It is the same story that unfolded just a few months ago when armed terrorists killed 145 people at the Moscow-like Crocus Town Corridor concert venue, although an affiliate of Islamic Atmosphere claimed responsibility.

In lieu of investigating how Russia’s intelligence agencies could have overlooked such a significant attack, Moscow immediately accused Kiev and its Western allies of helping organize it. Such allegations reinforce the Kremlin’s narrative that the West habitually poses the most important existential ultimatum to Russians’ security.

However, Neil Melvin, director of global security research at Royal United Products & Services, said “two primary terrorist attacks happening so close together” will raise questions about whether the war in Ukraine has given the Kremlin more visibility into what is happening inside Russia. Has distracted him from it. Consider a tank based at the Institute, London.

Melvin said the resurgence of violence in Dagestan at this hour is an ultimatum to regional balance within the North Caucasus and Putin’s claim to restore the layout there.

The Kremlin has not always struggled to quash stories related to violent Islamism.

Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim region of Russia within the North Caucasus. Extremist violence there increased in the early 2000s following two wars waged by Russian forces in neighboring Chechnya. Those conflicts have allowed Putin to say he has brought solace and balance to the stormy region and burnished his symbol as a guarantor of Russia’s security.

However, more recently, Dagestan – like other ethnic minority regions – has borne the brunt of Putin’s sometimes unpopular efforts to mobilize men for the Ukraine war. The pocket also made headlines in October when an anti-Israel mob stormed the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, weeks after the October 7 attack on a passenger plane from Israel.

Recently, the Kremlin has blamed “international terrorism” and “jihadism” for the unprecedented outbreak of violence in Russia’s Caucasus, bringing it into series with Western countries and facing a unique ultimatum, War Studies in Kings. said Michael Clarke, visiting lecturer at. School London. He added, “But since 2022, the Kremlin has worked hard to portray that these attacks are somehow motivated from the outside and especially that they point back toward Kiev, no matter how weak they are ”

On Monday, Dagestan Governor Sergei Melikov said the government knew who was behind the attacks and what their motives were, but he declined to name any perpetrators, only revealing what he said was a worldwide Was controlled in. cells.”

Ambiguous and mixed messaging has also been a characteristic of normative responses to earlier terrorist attacks on Russian territory.

Days after the Crocus Town corridor attack in March, Putin said it was carried out by “radical Islamists” but wondered who had directed them. Two weeks after that, he said that Russia would no longer be centralized through “Islamic radicals” because it was “a unique example of interreligious agreement and unity.”

Harold Chambers, a political analyst focusing on Russia at Indiana College Bloomington, said the purpose of the denial was “the distraction of the security services from the war in Ukraine. It was not revised after the Crocus City Hall attack.”

In particular, after Sunday’s attack, Russian environmental media reported that a local native, Magomed Omarov, was relieved of his post and expelled from the ruling United Russia party. Those reports claimed that Omarov’s son and nephew took part in the attacks. If the allegations are true, there will be uncomfortable questions for the Kremlin.

“The recent elevation of Dagestan militants shows that the counterterrorism landscape in the North Caucasus has changed significantly,” Chambers said.

Environment branch spokesman Matthew Miller told Newshound on Monday he had no comment on who carried out the attack. 3 US officials told NBC News that the rogue branch of ISIS has publicly taken credit for the attack but that other local extremist groups are also responsible.

Telegram channels linked to the ISIS affiliate that attacked Krokus praised Sunday’s attack by “our brothers from the Caucasus,” but did not claim responsibility.

The Washington-based Institute for War Research argued that the North Caucasus branch of the Islamic State team, Vilayet Kavkaz, was likely behind the attack, describing it as “complex and coordinated”.