Putin remains silent on wave of terrorist attacks in Russia

Vladimir Putin has no plans to comment on the “terrorist attacks” in southern Russia and in the occupied Crimean city of Sevastopol, the Kremlin said on Monday afternoon.

Russia’s Investigative Committee released footage purporting to show its investigation into Sunday’s attack in the Muslim-majority republic of Dagestan, which reportedly killed at least 19 people. Gunmen with automatic weapons entered an Orthodox church and a synagogue in the coastal city of Derbent on Sunday evening, killing a Russian Orthodox priest. About 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the north, attackers fired on a traffic police post and attacked a church in the republic’s capital, Makhachkala.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about the Russian president’s reaction to the attack and Russian claims that five people were killed by falling debris when five Ukrainian missiles were fired in the Crimean city of Sevastopol on Sunday. Newsweek has asked the Kremlin and the Investigative Committee for further comments.

Moscow blamed the US for the attack and claimed that American-made missiles were used. The state news agency quoted Peskov as saying that Putin had “no particular intention to make a speech on the terrorist attacks in Sevastopol and Dagestan”.

Russian investigators said Sunday’s incidents in Dagestan killed 15 police officers and four civilians, as well as at least five attackers. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the incidents.

However, the attack on Christian and Jewish places of worship fueled fears that Russia could be facing a new threat from militant Islamists. Just three months ago, 145 people were killed and hundreds injured in Moscow’s Crocus concert hall. The Khorasan province of the Islamic State (IS-K) claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Wilayat Kavkaz, the North Caucasus branch of the Islamic State, was likely responsible for Sunday’s attacks. As with the March attacks, Russian officials have not blamed the Islamist militant groups likely behind the attacks, instead pointing to the West.

“With this narrative, Russian authorities are trying to divert public concerns that security forces are not doing enough to counter the Islamist threat,” says Markus Korhonen, senior fellow at S-RM, a geopolitics and cyber risk consultancy.

“Instead, shifting the blame onto the main enemies in Ukraine and the West allows Russia to consistently portray the war in Ukraine as an existential struggle,” Korhonen said. Newsweek“Two major terrorist attacks in a relatively short period of time highlight Russia’s domestic security failures,” he said. “The intelligence failures behind the attacks will surely be embarrassing.”

“By pointing the finger at Ukraine rather than the real culprits, the regime can claim that it is directing its security efforts in the right places, at least for now.”

North Caucasus security analyst Harold Chambers said Newsweek that so far no links between Wilayat Kavkaz and the attacks are known, but that cooperation between Wilayat Kavkaz and IS-K has become closer. “The exact relationship seems to be fluid and not well established.”

However, it is difficult to say whether Sunday’s attacks were part of an uprising against Putin’s rule, Chambers said.

“There is increasing militant activity in most of the North Caucasus republics, but it remains low-level and it is unclear how large and how sustained this activity will be,” said Chambers, a doctoral student at Indiana University.

“So far, militant cells cannot survive for long. In all but two cases, their members were eliminated on the same day of their first attack,” he added.