Russia Is Losing: The Bombing At The Airport Domodedovo One Of Many Evidences

28 January 2011

By Markaz Kavkaz

The Western press continues to comment on recent events in Moscow in connection with the bombing at the airport Domodedovo.

The Christian Science Monitor points out that Russian people are openly asking "whether the terrorist attacks in Moscow means that Russia is losing the war".  

"A few are even voicing the previously unthinkable suggestion that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin should resign, since he is the leader most closely associated with setting policy during the decade-long cycle of terrorism and brutal security countermeasures in the seething north Caucasus", says the newspaper's correspondent Fred Weir.  

"We should urgently change our agenda, and insist that Putin and [Interior Minister Rashid] Nurgaliev come before the Duma [parliament] to explain themselves. The authorities have failed in the struggle against terrorism, they can not guarantee national security, so why shouldn't we be discussing the resignation of Putin's government?", says Vladimir Ulas, a Duma deputy with the Communist Party.  

"Experts say Russian authorities failed to heed the alarms set off by terror attacks in Russia's heartland over the past couple of years", the newspaper notes.  

Many critics say that Putin is the man who should be held to account for Russia's perennial vulnerability to sabotage attacks.  

"Putin came to power under the slogan of struggling against terrorism", says Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who is now co-leader of the Solidarnost (Solidarity) anti-Kremlin opposition coalition. "Over the 11 years that he's been in power one can say that the struggle against terrorism has failed. Terrorist acts - including nearly daily violence in the north Caucasus - have grown in number by six times, to 780 last year," he says.  

Igor Korotchenko, a former high-ranking security officer, told, referring to the North Caucasus:  

"Right now, instead of systematic measures, we send the money to prop up the local elites. It's not working. We see mass unemployment and poverty against the backdrop of palaces for local elite. This is a reliable recruiting tool for the terrorists".  

An explosion at Moscow airport Domodedovo may be a double-edged sword, says in its next issues the Italian Corriere della Sera.

"Choosing the biggest airport in Moscow and the arrival hall for the terrible act of terrorism committed on Monday, and the fact that among the victims were 7 foreigners, increases the resonance of the action, but the death of so many Europeans would further weaken the already diminishing sympathy of the world community to the Chechen separatists", Corriere della Sera threatens the Caucasian Mujahideen, while no official statements on this account were still made by them so far.

By what the "sympathy of the international community" helped to prevent another genocide of Chechens already in the 21 century the Corriere della Sera is modestly silent.  

It is to be recalled in this connection that during the highest sympathy for the "Chechen separatists" from Europe, Russia has twice invaded Chechnya, killing more than 255,000 civilians, including 42 thousand children under 11 years old, and expelling some 400,000 Chechens from their homeland.

Corriere della Sera, meanwhile, acknowledged that the expressions used by Putin and Medvedev to assess the current attacks are merely a repetition of words had sounded in the past.

Starting from the seizure of the Dubrovka Theater in 2002 and the subway bombings in 2010, the same rhetoric is heard. "We'll wipe them out in the outhouse", threatens Putin.  

"Nests of these thugs, whatever they are called, must be eliminated", threatens Medvedev.  

The Time in turn noted that this time, after another bomb attack, the leadership of Russian security services are silent and hide from prying eyes.

The Time means the ringleader of the Interior Ministry Nurgaliyev and ringleader of the Federal Security Service (AKA FSB, KGB's successor) Bortnikov.

"Having laid most of the blame on lax security at the airport, Medvedev now seems to be shielding Russia's top cops from the nation's most urgent question: Why didn't anyone stop this?" The Times writes.  

The failure of the police and authorities to explain themselves shows not just a lack of accountability but an outright disdain for the Russian public, says Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian security services.

"Our system is built in such a way that the security chiefs are above reproach and do not need to answer to anyone", Soldatov said in an interview with Russian journalists.  

As an example, Soldatov points to the fact that when Medvedev finally met with the FSB on Tuesday, in an unprecedented move, he went to them to give his assessment of the attack. The FSB did not go to him.  

The newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur draws attention to the fact that the opposition press in Russia with one voice accuses authorities of failing to provide security in the country. A part of the public opinion calls for the resignation of the head of security services. The main target was the police which are constantly accused of corruption.

The newspaper points out ерфе the obvious political situation in Russia, which does not allow neither Putin nor Medvedev use the bombing at Domodedovo Airport on the eve of the elections of 2012, since "the terrorist act is a recognition of the failure of the anti-terrorist policy of the Kremlin" (assuming Putin personally - KC).

"Now, to ensure its future, Moscow should be based on positive outcomes in terms of political stability and modernity. So the government will keep a low profile as in the attacks in March 2010. And then play the card of the Caucasus would be dangerous. The Russian government is not sure how to control the nationalists who might take this argument", the newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur indicated.  

Organizations that are fighting with Russia in the North Caucasus are definitely Islamist, but no need to assume that the problem of terrorism in Russia is similar to the problem of al-Qaeda, writes in turn the British The Times in its editorial.

In fact, it's a problem in the style of the IRA. In Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and in all other areas between the Black and Caspian seas, the extremist religious ideology exists only in form, which prides itself on the existing ideology of nationalists. Moreover, although the methods used by separatist organizations are disgusting, their claims to statehood are fair, the article says.

Russians inevitably become accustomed to the terrorist attacks, but the organizers of the explosion at the international airport Domodedovo, apparently, wanted to attract attention not only Russians, suggests The Times, recalling the Sochi Olympics and World Cup 2018. Sooner or later, Russia should stop trying to crush the problems of the Caucasus and to try to solve them, the paper concludes.  

The recent explosion at Moscow airport Domodedovo shaken "the pact signed by Putin with the people", wrote the German weekly Stern Katja Gloger. The power can no longer guarantee stability and security to the people.

Medvedev was to go to the forum in Davos, where he could once again appear as a supporter of modernization, albeit timid. Instead, you saw him on TV, with a telephone receiver in hand, in front of a computer screen.  

"The presentation should demonstrate determination, but rather exposed the helplessness against the backdrop of terrible images taken after the attack at Domodedovo" the author writes.  

"Again bloodbath and dead bodies in the heart of Russia - and again, possibly, the Caucasian trace. The causes are known - the article says. - It is necessary to improve the quality of life of people in the Caucasus, president Medvedev is not tired of repeating. And so, as part of the modernization of the region, billions will be spent ... to creation of ski resorts in the inaccessible mountains of the Caucasus", the journalist is amazed.  

The bombing at Domodedovo is a shock for Russia also from the standpoint that undermines the "social contract" signed by the power with the people.

"Putin-Medvedev tandem, corrupt bureaucracy, the arbitrariness in the justice system - the people tolerate this all jacked crises in exchange for guarantees of stability and, above all, security", the author notes.  

As for stability, then the last two years vividly demonstrated how disastrous the economic stability of the country is, which power is based only on energy exports. And what about security? Today more than ever people are realizing: security exists only for those who hides behind bodyguards traveled in armored limousines and who have "reserve airfields" in London, the journalist points out.

©  EsinIslam.Com

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