A wave of grief has swept across the country: the terrifying and devastating attack on Crocus City Hall on 22 March, which claimed the lives of over 130 people, has shaken Russia to the core. This attack, which experts undoubtedly attribute to the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), represents another unforeseen domestic political event in Russia in a short space of time. One that makes Vladimir Putin, who presents himself as the ‘guarantor of stability’, and the domestic political situation in Russia as a whole appear much more fragile.

Ten months after the Prigozhin revolt, the handling of the attack shows that unexpected events continue to pose major difficulties for the Kremlin when it comes to responding. Once again, Russian citizens had to wait almost 20 hours in a moment of national crisis for their newly elected president, who had been re-elected with overwhelmingly favourable (and, of course, falsified) results, to address the nation. This speech was postponed several times, only to remain surprisingly vague as to who was responsible for the attack. ISKP or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were not mentioned at all, a connection to Ukraine was hinted at, but above all, Putin was concerned with invoking national unity regardless of ethnicity/nationality (Nationalnosti).

Image of a strong leader

Not without reason: the first decade of Putin’s presidency was characterised by the Second Chechen War and a whole series of major attacks. The attacks on residential buildings in 1999 with unknown origins, which ultimately helped Putin to become president and conveyed the image that Russia now needed a man with a strong hand in power, were just the beginning: they were followed by the hostage-taking at the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow, the hostage-taking in Beslan, which is still a national trauma not unlike the September 11 attacks in the US, as well as attacks in Moscow and St. Petersburg metros. The last major attack took place in the St. Petersburg metro in 2017 and claimed the lives of 14 people.

While the attacks initially took place primarily in the context of the Chechen War and other independence movements in the North Caucasus, the later attacks were mainly carried out by various groups that were being targeted as part of the global ‘war on terror’. During this time, Putin succeeded in positioning himself as the strong man who would fight such terror and bring stability and security to Russia. To this end, the Kremlin also repeatedly ‘flirted’ with nationalist movements and groups within Russia, further fuelling the already widespread racism against people from the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Contrary to the idea that Russia is a highly efficient police state, corruption and crime are increasingly widespread in the country.

The situation today is different: Russian society has grown unaccustomed to the threat of terrorism, and, in a certain sense, has also relaxed. The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine (and, according to the Kremlin narrative, the entire West) is a national effort and requires maximum unity of society regardless of ethnicity. The current attack reveals the regime’s domestic political overextension: be it through conflicts that have only been resolved superficially or with immense violence, as in Chechnya, or through the realisation that Russia has increasingly become the target of radical Islamist groups such as ISKP as a result of its intervention in the Syrian war.

No state can completely protect itself from terrorist attacks. Contrary to the idea that Russia is a highly efficient police state, corruption and crime are increasingly widespread in the country. Especially since the beginning of the war, there has been a growing number of weapons circulating on the black market. The security forces are primarily occupied with the fight against ‘internal enemies’, which mostly include the liberal opposition. The LGBT movement and Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), for example, are considered extremist. A police force geared towards repression may be able to arrest peaceful protesters in the centre of Moscow, but it is not automatically experienced in preventing and defending against attacks. This prioritisation and increasing focus of the security authorities on maintaining regime stability and the war in Ukraine, whatever the cost, is simultaneously undermining internal cohesion, causing it to gradually disintegrate.

Fuelling hatred and instability

It was only on Monday evening that Putin clearly named ‘radical Islamists’ as the perpetrators of the attack. Immediately afterwards, however, he posed the cui bono? question — and following the regime's logic, there can be no other answer than Ukraine. While Putin and the Russian state propaganda are almost obsessively trying to identify Ukraine as the culprit, nationalist propaganda channels are pointing to the Tajik nationality of the accused, thereby fuelling hatred. This was quickly picked up on in the Duma: following initial calls the day after the attack to restrict the entry of migrants, on 25 March, a working group was already discussing the fact that there were ‘ethnic-national enclaves’ in Russia, consisting of migrants and people who have not had Russian citizenship since birth, which are a ‘serious factor in destabilising the domestic political situation’. Opposition media are already reporting the first attacks on people with (supposed) Tajik citizenship or origin.

The Kremlin cannot actually be happy with these developments. In addition to the popularised image of national unity in the war against Ukraine, Russia is also economically dependent on seasonal and migrant workers, particularly from Central Asia. It can therefore be assumed that attempts are being made to steer the public debate in a different direction — and to show a harsh reaction in a different way. The inhumane humiliation and display of the captured assassins, the search for blame with the West and Ukraine as well as the call for the reintroduction of the death penalty will therefore dominate state propaganda for the time being.

Putin, the president who brings stability and security to the citizens — this image is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. This security-focussed regime has so far avoided the trade-off between internal security and the simultaneous waging of a brutal war of aggression. The return of terror could now upset this balancing act.