The explosion in Moscow’s airport claimed the lives of 35 innocent people, including our compatriot Hanna Mashutina (born in 1981). The Russian news agency Novosti reports that she flew to Moscow from Odesa to receive a prize in the “Personal Business” movie script competition at a ceremony held by the journal Iskusstvo kino. Alas, her plane arrived shortly before the explosion.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev blamed the airport management for failing to take adequate security measures. As he told the Russia 24 TV channel, “These events show clear security breaches. It is not so easy to carry such a large amount of explosives [into an airport]. Everyone who has anything to do with the company, who is in charge of making decisions there, as well as the management of the airport, should be held accountable.” The president also gave relevant instructions to the prosecutor-general.
It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was a terrorist act. Tellingly, prosecutors do not even consider other, for instance criminal scenarios. This raises the first question: was the blast linked to North Caucasus resistance fighters or rather global terrorism? Naturally, it is impossible to draw a clear line between the two. There is ample evidence of international terrorists also fighting in the North Caucasus.
The ongoing conflict is increasingly spreading to other regions, particularly the Russian capital. The militants’ tactics remain unchanged — they choose the most crowded spots of Moscow’s infrastructure as their targets. Last March it was the subway, and now it is an airport.
EXPERT OPINION
“Our society is absolutely unprepared for seriously rallying around the security issue”
Gleb PAVLOVSKY, president of the Foundation for Effective Politics:
“I think we have got used to the fact that terrorist acts occur from time to time and, at a certain moment, stop treating them seriously. Here is the proof: a debate is going on about body searches at airport entry points. This once existed. Then everybody began to raise hell and all, including myself, were happy when this ‘stupidity’ was abolished — because it stands in your way. This is what I call getting used to. It is rather dangerous. For this reason, public sentiment is not the right guide in such matters as security.
“Nobody thinks that Russia has done away with terrorism. Acts of terrorism occur in the Caucasus every day. You can think, of course, that if you just do not travel to Dagestan or Ingushetia, things will be OK. From time to time, this war comes to Moscow. There is now a change of generations among the Caucasus underground fundamentalists. New active groups are coming in to vie for funds and support.
“Now about Putin’s 1999 promise to put an end to terrorism. It was about Chechen separatism and the existence of a pirate state right in the middle of Russia. He put an end to [that state]. But I do not think we can hope today that somebody will ever do away with terrorism in the next few years. In my view, terrorism is evolving and assuming a new shape. We are going to see it in new places and in new forms.
“It would be silly for Russia to compare itself to Britain or the US, where the government managed to avert terrorist plots similar to those of 2001 and 2005. Our society is absolutely unprepared to seriously rally around the security issue. In general it is unprepared to rally around anything. And we are paying for it. It will be more correct to compare our terrorism situation with that of Israel and Palestine.
“It will take at least 30 or 50 years for Russia to do away with terrorism. Policies are going to change several times over this period. The Middle East has been facing this problem for 50 years, and nobody has found a solution yet. I do not think the Caucasus is a simpler case. There is only one simple solution — totalitarian dictatorship. But, as we know, even Stalin failed to quell the mayhem in the Caucasus.
“Naturally, there will be changes in policy now or even a more careful choice of a security project, in both the center and the provinces. We should work with the actual underground groups in the Caucasus. They are no longer expecting us to recognize them as a government, and we cannot expect to be able to shower them all with money. There are always young people there, who are vying for a place next to the older ones. I think this will be a very long process. It is good and beneficial to use Western experience, but one must treat it seriously and invite Western security experts — from both Israel and the US.
“The current policy of eliminating terrorists in Russia follows not from the intention to destroy them before they have been interrogated but from the inability to capture them otherwise. That would require good agents to infiltrate these groups. Our secret services prefer dealing with some youth groups and so-called extremist elements which do not present much of a threat. In the end, when terrorists have been found, they come under artillery fire, which, of course, supplies no information for further work.
“What conclusions can the Russian government draw from the terrorist act in Domodedovo? Firstly, we should find out who really organized it because nothing is known for sure. The terrorist network is very wide. Secondly, security should be tightened in all strategically important points. Thirdly, those in charge of this field should have their level of responsibility increased. It is not just airport executives who should bear the responsibility. I think higher-placed officials, including ministers, should be responsible. This is a very good thing to do because a new minister will be looking for real ways to fend off such disasters, while ‘old men’ can do nothing but shift instructions from one place to another.
“As time goes by, our society remains incredibly passive. It is not united. It willingly runs down the bosses but is doing nothing. It is not prepared to form a coalition to support a certain policy. So you will see some time later that, after shouting for a week or so, everybody will stop caring about the situation and they will be unwilling to insist upon a certain political concept. The problem is not whether or not we have a good policy. The Caucasus policy principles, adopted in the past few years during the Medvedev presidency, are sound enough, but the problem is that none of our policies are pursued in a consistent way because society does not insist on this. This is why our society can always be appeased with promises and dismissals of low-level officials.”
