Preoccupied exclusively with the criminal war against Ukraine, Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin ignored the series of armed attacks in Dagestan that occurred on Sunday, June 23.
Points of attention
- Putin ignores the serious problem of armed attacks in Dagestan, concentrating on the war against Ukraine.
- Armed attacks in Dagestan threaten stability in the North Caucasus and raise the question of the effectiveness of the actions of the Russian authorities.
- The Kremlin's attempts to divert attention from domestic problems by blaming Ukrainian, Western and NATO special services reveal the destructive discourse of interneutrality.
- Blaming external factors can become a strategy for the Kremlin to distract from its own shortcomings and misunderstandings with the population.
- Large-scale terrorist attacks in Dagestan testify to the instability of the Russian Caucasus and force the authorities to seek new approaches in regulating conflicts in the region.
What threatens Putin with destabilization in Dagestan
According to Western journalists, the result of armed attacks in Dagestan, during which a synagogue and two Orthodox churches, as well as law enforcement officers, were attacked, resulted in the death of 16 police officers, an Orthodox priest and several civilians.
At the same time, the Kremlin tried to downplay the possibility that Islamists organized the attacks.
Attempts to divert attention from a possible connection may hint at the growing vulnerability of President Vladimir Putin, whose attention and resources are focused on the war in Ukraine and those who oppose it inside Russia, the article emphasises.
Kremlin-controlled politicians claim that the attacks were allegedly organised by Ukrainian and Western intelligence services, as well as NATO.
The authors of the article emphasize that the Kremlin put forward a similar version a few months ago during the terrorist attack in "Crocus City Hall" near Moscow, as a result of which more than 140 people died.
Instead of investigating how the Russian special services allowed the possibility of this terrorist attack, Moscow immediately accused Kyiv and its Western allies of helping to organize it.
Such accusations are part of the Kremlin's public narrative that the West represents the greatest existential threat to the security of ordinary Russians.
As Neil Melvin, director of the international security research department of the Royal Joint Services Institute, points out, two major terrorist attacks in recent times give reason to think that the criminal war against Ukraine has not distracted the Kremlin from what is happening inside Russia.
Melvin added that renewed violence in Dagestan this week poses a threat to regional stability in the North Caucasus and Putin's claims of restoring order there.
How Dagestan risks becoming the new epicentre of large-scale Instability in Russia
Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim region of Russia in the North Caucasus.
Extremist violence increased there in the early 2000s after two wars fought by Russian forces in neighbouring Chechnya.
These conflicts have allowed Putin to claim that he has brought peace and stability to the restive region and strengthen his image as a guarantor of Russia's security.
But recently, Dagestan, like other regions where ethnic minorities live, has borne the brunt of Putin's sometimes unpopular efforts to mobilise men for the war in Ukraine, the article notes.
Michael Clark, a professor of military studies at King's College London, emphasized that before that, Moscow had already blamed "international terrorism" and "jihadism" for new outbreaks of violence in the Russian Caucasus.
However, since 2022, the Kremlin "is making every effort to suggest that these attacks are somehow inspired from the outside, and, in particular, that they are leading to Kyiv, albeit with a stretch," Clark emphasized.
The authors of the article also note that in Russia, the son and nephew of local official Magomed Omarov, who was already dismissed from his post and expelled from the ruling United Russia party, was involved in the recent terrorist attacks in Dagestan.
If these accusations turn out to be true, they will present the Kremlin with uncomfortable questions, — the publication notes.
