The General Russia Thread

And it's pretty clear the USA's warning was sincere since it was also for the benefit of any USA citizens in Russia at the time. The USA doesn't tell its people to GTFO of a country unless they think there is good reason to GTFO.

Well there is like up to 60 dead and 100+ wounded in Moscow so far, this was big. like BIG. hope people in moscow are okay but given everything the answer of that is not

Medvedev already insinuated Ukraine was to blame, of course.

Seeing three things:

• FSB's backing the false flag.

• FSB's doing the ISIL thing.

• ISIL did it and they did so via Telegram.

https://new.reddit.com/r/FreedomofRussia/comments/1bijbz5/exit_poll_of_the_percentage_of_expatriate/

Exit poll stats of Russian expats living overseas who voted in the elections for Putin.

Really considering the usual level of comments out of Medvedev the fact that statements had an IF when he brought up Ukraine and responsibility I think gives away that even he doesn't believe they did it.

Edited by Roguemind on Mar 23rd 2024 at 1:20:04 AM

How's the damage compared to IS attacks on other European countries like France?

Well, after a talk with my family about this, and being reminded how Putin got into power in the first place, I am inclined to believe the actual culprits are either FSB themselves, or they willingly turned a blind eye to it all and let actual terrorists to carry it out.

Why? Because Putin wants people to be terrified and flock to him. In their terrified state, they would look towards him for safety. It's his way of ensuring absolute power and authority over his people. How else can you explain a bunch of commandos slipping into the heart of his empire and pulling off such rampage? Hell, all it takes is uttering one "bad" word on the streets of Moscov to get you arrested and either put in prison or sent to fight in Ukraine as cannon fodder.

FWIW, the US government seems to believe it was ISIS who did this, in fact, a little over two weeks ago the US government posted a bulletin warning that there might be terrorist attacks in Russia targetting large crowds (Archived versions).

I think we are seeing the same issue as Iran has, namely that politicians in both countries have tunnel vision and don't realize that "the West" is not the only enemy. Adding to this that if memory serves, Russia has sapped its police/law enforcement resources for use in the Ukraine war, so it's easier to get a terrorist plot off the ground without being caught.

I think you could also argue that Russia thinks ISIS only has enough beef to do this stuff in Europe.

Russia is in Europe, and had done plenty of colonial fuckery in de Middle-East.

It's also done colonial fuckery in what's nowadays part of Russia's territory - people often forget that Russia got this big in the first place by colonising its eastern neighbours.

Well, yeah, but I figured ISIL wouldn't be too upset about that, except maybe performatively in order to legitimize their claim to pan-Islamic nationhood.

IS has active chapters in Central Asia and the North Caucasus as well. Russian authorities have apparently pegged one of the attackers as a Tajikistani national.

Four attackers, actually.

But as expected, Russia is trying to blame Ukraine anyway by claiming the culprits were fleeing towards the border and had connections there. Ukraine, of course, replied by pointing out that anyone trying to escape through an active warzone is Too Dumb to Live.

According to what I found on IS statements, they did the attacks to avenge pre-Kadyrov Chechnya, Syria and pre-2001 Afghanistan.

Edited by Ominae on Mar 23rd 2024 at 5:06:54 AM

It’s wild that the only part of the Muslim world that seem to care about Russian butchering of Muslims in Syria is fucking ISIS.

That tactic works well when you’re in opposition, but when you’re currently in power and have been for a while it’s a harder trick to pull.

Trump tried it in 2020 by showing footage of riots and saying that such scenes were what would occur in Biden’s America deposit the footage bring from his term in office, Netanyahu is seeing his popularity tank in Israel because after telling everyone to support him because he’s keep them safe he went and presided over a catastrophic security failure, the Conservatives in the U.K. are loosing the anti-immigration vote because after 14 years in power build on campaigns of “vote for us to stop the immigration threat” immigration is still at a record high.

Or in short. Russians have been looking to Putin for safety for years, but I doubt a lot of them are feeling particularly safe after the attack.

People like Putin don’t keep others safe. They never have and never will.

I bet the only thing Putin feels is relief this happened after the election. Would have made rigging the results more of a hassle.

Edited by M84 on Mar 23rd 2024 at 8:47:58 PM

Only people who've made statements are some Duma politicians, the Russian MOFA spokeswoman Zakharova, Medvedev and Peskov.

Statements issued by the Kremlin mentioned that most of the arrested terrorists tried to escape to the direction of Ukraine.

Edited by Ominae on Mar 23rd 2024 at 8:26:01 AM

Arrested terrorists, or random Tajik migrant workers they rounded up and roughed up into confessing on camera?

It is not really surprising given the muslim world's less than stellar response to other atrocities against muslims everywhere be it the Uighurs or the Rohingyas (even heard Indonesians have taken to calling Rohingyas not real muslims to justify their growing contempt for rohingyan refugees ), even Afghan refugees in Pakistan or even the plight of Kashmiris. Ofcourse it is kinda hypocritical for ISIS to be talking about atrocities against muslims when a lot of their victims are also muslims, but I guess they are takfiriing the muslims they fight and kill, to justify themselves as stalwarts of the muslim brotherhood.

I wonder though if this attack will affect relations between Russians and its own muslim minorities or Chechen muslims in a more negative direction. Since the war on terror, muslims do tend to get generalised as extremists regardless of ethnicity or nationality by right wingers everywhere to my knowledge.

Edited by xyzt on Mar 23rd 2024 at 9:34:44 PM

They still try to blame Ukraine for this. They really don’t want to admit they fucked up.

Yep. All the pro-Russia/Chinese persons like Danny Haiphong and Carl Zha are in overdrive analyzing the attacks.

If this is to be believed, the "suspects" rounded up so far were in other countries/cities when the attack happened. So...

About what I expect from the FSB really.