By Vestnik Kavkaza
Volgograd and other regions of Russia have introduced an enhanced mode for the entire security services in connection with the terrorist attacks in the city at the railway station and on a trolleybus on December 29 and 30, resulting in the deaths of, according to preliminary data, 32 people, and dozens injured.
Commenting on the situation in an interview to VK, coordinator of the Club of Volgograd experts Andrei Serenko expressed the view that "security in Volgograd and the Volgograd region was the weakest in the south of Russia. The low level of professionalism, as it turns out, in counter-terrorism, has led to a situation where terrorists today perceive the city as an easy target. They blow up everything they can".
Serenko stressed that the situation can only be fixed by the power structures themselves: "Nothing here can be done by any civil authority or political party, or public organizations, because the task of combating terrorism is a very specific task of law enforcement agencies, which must have relevant work experience. Fighting terrorists cannot be entrusted to amateurs, vigilantes, regional government officials, governors, priests and so on".
"What we see today in Volgograd are two cynical, calculated, well-designed special operations, which were organized by evil, but very far from stupid people. Yet, based on what the security forces are doing, I do not see in their activities an understanding of the logic of what the terrorists want, but the fact that there is some important task in this chain of terrorist acts in Volgograd, in my opinion, is obvious. And as long as the law enforcement agencies investigate only committed terrorist acts, rather than trying to anticipate the logic and subsequent actions of terrorists, we will obtain new explosions," Serenko warned.
A Senior Researcher of the Center for Ethnopolitical Studies of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Ahmet Yarlykapov, in an interview to VK said that "Volgograd was chosen, firstly, because it is a transit city, a point through which the different transit routes run from Central Asia and the Caucasus. The second likely reason is the inability of terrorists to strike at more desirable targets.The point is that the two main points in which terrorists would like to arrange terrorist attacks, Sochi and Moscow, have taken sufficiently serious security measures, so for them these cities are apparently not available, and therefore, in Volgograd, the very nearest of the less protected cities, they had the opportunity to inflict a very painful blow."
Yarlykapov warned that ahead of the Olympic Games in Sochi serious vigilance must be shown in almost all areas, not only in the Volga region: "First and foremost, of course, I mean Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, and what happened recently in Pyatigorsk (an exploded car near the building of STSI) has very clearly shown this. In my opinion, it is the implementation of the threats that many years ago Doku Umarov clearly voiced – about the failure of the Olympics. And this long calm was the calm before the storm".
Three versions of why the terrorists chose Volgograd were suggested to VK by the head of the department of higher journalistic skills of MSLU, Alan Kasayev: "The first one is that for Russia Volgograd is not just a city but a symbol of former victories in the struggle against foreign aggressors". Secondly, this is a point on the map which is located at the intersection of different routes - from the North Caucasus to the center of Russia, and from the Russian center to Siberia. That is, it is a kind of cultural crossroads of transport routes. The third reason, tactical, can be valid if within the city there is an organized terrorist group".
"Volgograd is long and narrow, elongated along the Volga, and it is easy to leave from the place of so big crime”, Kasayev said. “That is, the choice of the city could be imposed by criminal tactics, provided that the center of the terrorist activities is located in Volgograd. This is real, if there is some conspiratorial group of people who have studied the area, understand how enforcement operates, and, most importantly, the leaders of clandestine gangs trust them".
Meanwhile, Kasayev suggested not jumping to conclusions about the source of the terrorist threat: "Despite the fact that the terrorists are originally from Dagestan or some neighboring regions of the North Caucasus, I have doubts about who was behind the recent explosion in Volgograd. I'm not exactly sure that the trail leads to the North Caucasus".
State Duma deputies and heads of the republics of the NCFD agree with the expert. Urging to prevent ethnic tensions in covering the attacks, the deputy chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, Rizvan Kurbanov, said that "it is necessary to prevent the use of information and the communication power of the Internet by bandits to their advantage, because their main goal is to destabilize the situation and to foment ethnic strife in society."
The head of Karachai-Cherkessia, Rashid Temrezov, opined that "every such call only strengthens our tough and principled position: any action of destructive forces to destabilize society is illegal, and the organizers and perpetrators of these crimes should be punished to the fullest extent of Russian legislation".
The head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, stated that "today requires full mobilization of the law enforcement agencies, our entire society, all the people of goodwill. And those who are behind these attacks, these jackals, by the fault of which civilians were killed and maimed, must be found and punished most cruelly under Russian law".
The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, called for adopting a law “infinitely increasing the punishment" for terrorism: "Games in democracy and humanity could not eradicate this evil. I urge the State Duma at the first session to pass a law indefinitely increasing the penalty for those who not only commits an act of terrorism, but who share the ideas of the terrorists, spreading their ideology, preparing terrorists. "
Kadyrov offered to outlaw all radical movements, parties and groups: "We cannot divide offenders into good and bad ones. Terrorists are neither Muslims nor Christians, even if they pretend to pray around the clock".
