Despite the fact that the Islamic State of Greater Khorassan has claimed up to three times that it is behind the Crocus City Hall attack, the Kremlin refuses to let the Ukrainian hypothesis stand. It is the same that the detainees - exhibited with obvious signs of torture - are Tajiks and that there is no evidence against Kyiv, Putin and his propaganda apparatus do not let go of the prey. "It is a way of evading responsibility and contributes to building the story of Kyiv and the West as enemies", says Adrián Tarín, author of La jihad en Rusia (Ed. Icaria).
Why is it so difficult for the Kremlin to assume responsibility for the Islamic State?
I don't remember attacks by the Islamic State in which they had to say three times in 48 hours: "Listen, it's us". Putin's refusal to claim responsibility for the Islamic State is because it would mean not only assuming that there was a security decision, but also that the warnings given by the embassies of the United States and the United Kingdom were ignored. Putin went public to say that this was a provocation. Moreover, in the media landscape that has been built through disinformation and propaganda, the war frame works very well and is a way to evade responsibility and contributes to building the narrative of Kyiv and the West as to enemies and adversaries.
Putin has just swept the elections. Is there so much fear of social backlash?
It is not so much a matter of fear of a social reaction, but of the construction of the image of an infallible leader who does not make mistakes and of a strong State victim of foreign aggression.
A strong State with no shame in showing detainees with obvious signs of torture.
We can enroll Putin in the current of Russian traditionalism, which considers that the Russian people have ideas different from those of the West connected to traditionally virile values such as courage, strength or honor. Putin represents all of this today. This natural acceptance of torture is part of what Putin understands the Russian people to expect.
A Meduza investigation indicates that Russian intelligence tried to infiltrate former Islamic State fighters into Tatar and Chechen militias fighting in Ukraine.
The truth is that in Ukraine there is a battalion commanded by Sheikh Mansur composed of Chechens, some of whom come from the Syrian front. On the border between Ukraine and Russia there may be elements that are opportunistically using the war for other purposes. What is strange and needs more proof is that this has the complicity of Kyiv. Another thing that is well documented is that during the war in Syria, to empty the North Caucasus of jihadists, Russia made it easy for them to travel to the country.
What do Islamist groups have against Russia?
The founding enemy of jihadism is the Russia of the Soviet Union, at least of modern jihadism that was built in the seventies with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Russia continued to be an enemy in the North Caucasus with the Chechen war of the 1990s and 2000s. In addition there is a whole historical memory of jihadism going back to the 19th century that also builds this image that Russia is an enemy of Islam from the Russian invasion of the Caucasus lands to Stalin's deportations of Chechens and Ingush. But going to more recent events, Russia intervened in Syria against the interests of the Islamic State, maintains good relations with Iran - one of the great enemies of the Islamic State - and is getting closer to the Taliban, their enemies in the Khorassan region, where the branch that claims the attack comes from.
The Islamist threat used to come from the North Caucasus and is now moving to Central Asia. What is the reason?
More and more people from Central Asia are nurturing jihadist groups. Not that the Caucasus has ceased to be a problem. But the existing groups do not have much operational power because they have been continually outflanked and because Russia has built more stable and repressive regimes in the region. At the same time, there is a lot of emigration from Central Asia. Citizens who do not have a very integrated life and whose relationship with the Russians is, in most cases, labor exploitation or racial contempt. Russia has an internal population of Central Asian migrants who cannot find their place in society. And this is a breeding ground for revenge, extremism and identity retreat.
