JRL NEWSWATCH: “The Moscow Terror Attack; Coming just days after Putin’s orchestrated election, will it endanger his legacy — and his future?” – The Nation

“… [T]he glaring failure of Putin’s security state to prevent the gruesome assault — despite the U.S. warning of March 7 that a strike on a concert hall could be imminent — may endanger the Russian government’s social contract with its people. The attack, which underscored the country’s continuing vulnerability to terrorist acts, came just days after Putin’s victory in an orchestrated election — solidifying his power as the war in Ukraine drags into its third year. Responsibility for the assault was quickly claimed by … Afghan-based … ISIS-Khorasan, … ISIS-K — a claim swiftly backed up by U.S. and other Western intelligence …. ISIS itself claimed responsibility. Yet Russian officials and state media have made little reference to ISIS’s claim. … Russian government officials and the FSB … have repeatedly claimed that the assailants were … traveling to Ukraine. … [P]reviously[] the FSB … focused almost entirely on … Islamist terror networks. But since 2002, most of its statements and work have related to Ukraine. … [T]oo often those accused of ‘terrorism’ and intercepted by the FSB were Russians protesting against the war or the government — such as Yuri Orlov and Boris Kagarlitsky. … Putin [once] built his career and image on the fight against Islamic militancy …. Putin promised to bring stability, order, and security …. Instead, his brutal military policies and unyielding refusal to negotiate a political resolution with the Chechen government-in-exile spurred a wave of terrorism that apparently, decades later, still afflicts Russia. …”

Click here for: “The Moscow Terror Attack; Coming just days after Putin’s orchestrated election, will it endanger his legacy—and his future?” – The Nation: Katrina vanden Heuvel