“Russia is in the situation of anti-terrorism struggle”

By Vestnik Kavkaza

The problem of terrorism which is acute for Russia in recent decade can become even more urgent ahead of the Olympic Games in Sochi.

The Vice-President of the International Association of Veterans of Anti-Terror Units "Alpha", Alexey Filatov, predicts that “the degree of the terrorist threat will grow ahead of the Olympic Winter Games. The next two or three months will not be easier than it was earlier. There will probably be a lot of clearance operations to neutralize underground terrorist gangs. There may be some manifestation of terrorist activity, carrying out any terrorist acts.

According to Filatov, “the nature of Russian terrorism is different from the situation in Israel, America or Europe. It has become very hard to distinguish terrorism from common banditry and extortion. But the increased activity ahead of the Olympics still suggests that a lot of people outside of our country would not want to see our country, our Russia, united, and they would like that it would be easier to haggle over our resources - natural, human, material, intangible, that we should be divided into twenty some areas, that Russia should cease to be strong. Probably, now few people can try to oppose something to America and still try to make the world a system of equilibrium. So, I think the trouble will continue, because terrorism is one of the most effective weapons against the state, against the authorities.”

Meanwhile, last week President Putin approved the law which requires criminal liability for training militants in camps, founding terrorist organizations and communities. Now the investigators have the opportunity to bring to justice people close to the terrorists, not just quite close - children, spouses and parents, but people, say, indirectly linked to the terrorists - for example, people who were in friendly relations, who knew that the person is engaged in potential terrorist activities.

Commenting on the law, Filatov stated: “A huge debate is flaring up, because we have a very strong liberal wing, And they can be understood. There are always references to the Constitution, to some democratic processes and laws. On the other hand, now in Volgograd six people died, and immediately after, in  two days five students and an ensign were killed in Pskov. But this did not cause such interest, neither from the media, nor from civil society, although there were six living people, our Russians who were killed, in both cases. What does this mean? This means that each killed person, every such act of terrorism, is a hundred, a thousand times stronger than an ordinary murder on the road out of alcoholism or drug addiction. And very often this leads to popular unrest. In general, it is no secret that with the help of this opposition, especially now, we can often hear "the homeland of terrorism is the Caucasus", radical Islam, that is, in this way we are divided due to religious and ethnic characteristics.

Filatov thinks that “as long as we do not defeat the corruption, there is fertile ground for terrorists.”

The representative of the Office of the National Anti-Terror Committee, Nikolai Sintsov, believes that “against the backdrop of geopolitical changes, the problem of destructive information-psychological influence on cultural identity has become particularly acute, as well as the spiritual and moral values of our society, especially the most vulnerable part of it - the youth. The puppets in the hands of the ideologues of religious and political extremism and terrorism, the members of bandit groups, seek to use the channels of mass media to disseminate their views and information on their criminal activities. Moreover, they aim not only to achieve coverage of their actions, but also to get youth recognition of their legitimacy and the morality of their actions, attracting new followers.”

According to Svintsov, “the influence of the internet on the younger generation, can now be called a key, and the terrorists are trying to actively use it. Young people poorly-versed in the media space are not always able to assess the information thus imposed and become an object of manipulation. Young people are targeted for using a surrogate mixture of radical slogans, distorted historical facts and religious speculation. The particular danger of terrorist ideology is that the speculative part of its declared values matches universal values, such as the rejection of drug addiction, alcoholism, smoking, corruption, etc.”