Crocus City Music Hall is one of those places almost anyone living in Moscow would know. It’s visible along the main highway from Moscow’s main airport, the ring road known as the MKAD.
So terrorists, would easily select it as a target for this bloody and dark attack they carried out on Friday night, although they would have needed to know the time the venue was opening to target the greatest number of people, which they did showiing preplanning and intelligence.
As many as 6000 people would be there, and it’s honestly astounding more than 137 people weren’t killed.
Fortunately, unlike similar attacks in places like the Bataclan in Paris attacked by terrorists in 2015 there were no hostages taken, and the shooting ended with the 4 gunmen fleeing the city quickly, after they set fire to the complex using what Russian authorities claim were flammables liquids they had prepared for the attack.
Within hours of the attack, rumours in Russian press that this was an attack coordinated by Ukraine, meant very quickly the Ukrainians denied involvement.
And, ISIS-K, which has attacked Russian targets in the past including the Russian Embassy in Kabul, claimed responsibility.
For once most can agree with President Putin, this was “a barbaric terrorist attack”. But Putin pointed to Ukrainian involvement saying the attackers arrested were on their way to Ukraine, and he suggested they applied NAZI methods in the slaughter, code for suggesting Ukrainian sponsorship, since Putin accuses Ukraine of harbouring NAZI’s.
The fact is President Putin came to power in 1999-2000 after a handful of apartment bombings in and around Moscow which killed more than 300 Russians. Those explosions were suspicious in nature considering there were no immediate claims of responsibility, and FSB operatives were heard on radio chatter, and even arrested in one case where the bombs didn’t detonate.
Putin was later accused by Russian’s in exile, of arranging those attacks on his own citizens, to mobilize the army and invade Chechnya.
Cynically social media has once again raised questions about the timing of this attack, and whether Putin and the FSB could have been behind it?
Kremlin loyalists meantime have suggested the U.S. may have had a hand in all this, even though the U.S. warned Russia 2 weeks ago it had intelligence of a pending IS terror attack, a warning that was also sent to American citizens in Moscow.
The fact is, Putin rejected that warning suggesting it was an American provocation designed to distract and disrupt Russian elections.
Putin has failed to protect his country, by ignoring those warnings, and by pointing at Ukrainian involvement he’s trying to distract from security failures in Russia.
If the FSB wasn’t so involved in hunting journalists, and war dissidents, and LGBQ groups now called terrorists in Russia, and instead was focusing on real anti terror work including tracking ISIS, Russia would be a much safer place today.
President Putin has not saved Russia by invading Ukraine, and mobilizing his nation to war, but rather he has badly damaged the security services, and Putin has placed his nation in the line of fire for preposterous reasons.
The bad news is Putin now has an election mandate (even if it is an election charade) until 2030, and possibly as long as 2036.
The security climate in Russia promises to deteriorate further, with the atrocious Crocus attack only a sub chapter of a larger unstable and ugly climate in Russia that Putin and his inner circle bear full responsibility for.
In addition to terror threats by groups like ISIS, the attacks by Ukraine on Russian infrastructure are increasing, in response to Russia’s bloody campaign on civilians in Ukraine which had killed thousands and displaced millions.
And as shocking and sad this terror attack is, Putin’s Russia only promises to be more wobbly, extreme, and on a path to more heart ache and loss.