Russia is crumbling from within
On Sunday evening, the North Caucasus region of Dagestan was rocked by a series of brutal terrorist attacks. Gunmen opened fire in a synagogue in Derbent, graphically slit the throat of Russian Orthodox priest Father Nikolay, and attacked Jewish and Christian houses of worship in Dagestan’s largest city Makhachkala. These brutal crimes claimed the lives of at least 15 people, including police officers.
The Kremlin’s reaction to these terrorist attacks was – as one might predict – fiercely conspiratorial. The narrative that “outside forces” were promoting inter-ethnic and religious discord within Russia circulated. Dagestani State Duma Deputy Abulkhakim Gadzhiev explicitly accused Ukraine and NATO’s intelligence agencies of perpetrating the attack.
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Since the Russian military levelled Chechnya’s capital Grozny in response to the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, Putin has framed himself as a decisive leader against the threat of Islamist terrorism. This narrative undergirded Putin’s legacy of restoring order in Russia after the 1990s transition-era organised crime wave and separatist wars. Putin’s social compact, which traded personal freedom for security, kept him in power even as oil prices plunged, and an economic malaise ensued.
Over the past year, this cardinal feature of Putin’s legacy has disintegrated in spectacular fashion. Exactly twelve months ago today, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ultranationalist legion occupied Rostov-on-Don and rapidly marched towards Moscow. The Kremlin decapitated this challenge by negotiating Prigozhin’s stand-down and almost certainly assassinating him. But the old threat of Islamist terrorism merely took its place.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-crumbling-within-142947072.html
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