In Russia, the attack highlights flaws in the security services even though American intelligence had warned the Kremlin of an imminent threat.
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Many questions are being asked after the attack near Moscow, Russia, in which at least 137 people were killed on Friday, March 22, in the evening. All eyes are turning in particular to the Russian security apparatus, which had nevertheless been warned by Washington of an imminent risk of attack during large gatherings.
The flaws, at least for what we know, seem to be commensurate with the terrible toll of this terrorist attack. First, the special forces took more than an hour to arrive on site, which allowed the terrorists to escape. They simply drove up in a Clio, parked in the underground car park of Crocus City Hall and left the same way.
Then it took more than five hours to stop them as they approached the border. Yet everyone knows, there are cameras everywhere in Moscow and terrorists have committed numerous traffic violations. And then on site, in the room, security still seemed quite light.
Intelligence services at the center of criticism
And then there is above all the major failure, that of not having seen the threat coming. This failure was all the more underlined since the Americans had issued an alert at the beginning of the month on the possibility of a terrorist attack targeting a large mass gathering in Moscow. They had published a message, particularly for the attention of their nationals.
Vladimir Putin, when he learned of this, considered that these were provocations and obvious blackmail, intended to destabilize and frighten Russian society. He said this in front of members of the FSB, responsible precisely for preventing this type of attack.
We have to put all this in the Russian context. It is a country where the “siloviki”, the men of the force structures, hold power. There are estimated to be between 2.3 and 2.7 million security forces in Russia. The police force alone has nearly a million officers. And to that, we must add the FSB, the National Guard, foreign intelligence (the SVR)… There are a lot of people. They are almost the backbone of the company.
A new attack on the “social contract”
The social contract that Vladimir Putin signed with the population is a sort of unwritten deal which combines a restriction of individual freedoms and a guarantee of economic stability and security.
Stability has already been shaken by the war in Ukraine and the sanctions, which have effects on society, inflation, the prospect of tax increases in the face of the war effort, etc. And then security has just been widely called into question and it is very significant to see, to hear, that many Russians in the street do not hesitate to speak to foreign journalists to point out the failings of the security services. This is not trivial in a country like Russia.
It is not said that this will have immediate consequences on power, which is held with an iron fist, but it can still have consequences. If only a new turn of the security screw internally, both to deal with threats and to stifle any attempt at criticism.