Putin firm on punishing Moscow killers

On the evening of March 22, a terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall in the city of Krasnogorsk, left over 130 dead and 147 injured. According to Russian sources, 11 suspects have been rounded up, of whom four were the gunmen. Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised address declared March 24 as a national mourning day and vowed to punish those responsible for the attack. He has said that a gap was created on the Ukrainian side for the terrorists to escape. But he did not directly hold Ukraine responsible for the attack though Russia is involved in a two-year war with Ukraine. A terror group has owned up the attack. It is the organisation that has been operating in Syria, Iraq, in Afghanistan. The possible reason for the attack on Russia could be Moscow’s support of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regime. The group, with indirect help from the United States had been tried to dislodge President Assad but it had failed. The group had criticized Russia’s policies. This creates a dilemma for Moscow. It would have preferred to believe that Ukraine was the mind behind the attack. But Ukraine has promptly denied any role in it. Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told Western news agency, Reuters: “Ukraine of course was not involved in this terror attack. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty from Russian invaders, liberating its own territory and is fighting with the occupiers’ army and the military targets, not civilians.”

Putin has, however, identified the attackers as part of “international terrorism,” and said in his televised address: “All the perpetrators, organisers and those who ordered this crime will be justly and inevitably punished. Whoever they are, whoever is guiding them. We will identify and punish everyone who stands behind the terrorists, who prepared this atrocity, this strike against Russia, against our people.”

If the group is the perpetrator, then Russia would be drawn into the war against terrorism, which the US and NATO have fought after the September 11, 2001 terror attack in New York and Washington. Russia had generally kept itself out of the war in Afghanistan, where the Western military forces ousted the Taliban government in Kabul because the Taliban had refused to hand over the Al-Qaeda or Daesh leader Osama Bin Laden. But the Americans and the NATO withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, and let the Taliban take over the reins of power. But the Americans were willing to support the terror group and other opposition parties to overthrow the Assad government, but failed. Russia and Putin stood by Assad, along with Iran.

If Russia is forced to take up arms against the group, then it will be opening a second front, the first being against Ukraine. Many in the West, the governments as well as the security experts, are likely to speculate that Russia fighting the group will divert its attention from Ukraine. But it has to be recognized that for Russia the war against Ukraine is far more important even as for Ukraine the war against Russia is the most important issue. Interestingly, the United States has alerted Moscow about a possible extremist attack a few days earlier. According to Kremlin, President Putin had held talks with leaders of Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan about joining hands to fight terrorism. This shows that Russia would not want to join hands with the Western governments to fight terrorism emanating from sources like the terror group. It should be a matter of concern to Russia and President Putin that terrorists have managed to penetrate far inside the country and create havoc