Two days ago the Lefortovo Court of Moscow arrested a student of MSU, Varvara Karaulova, who was detained in June at the Turkish-Syrian border on charges of involvement in terrorist activities. The investigating bodies are checking information on an attempt to recruit her into Islamic State. As a result of the investigation, the ICR will have to make a decision on the initiation or non-initiation of a criminal case. “We have been afraid that she will began to communicate with the recruiters again. Varvara knew that it was dangerous, but still she contacted them. We didn’t know how it had happened. However, there are some facts that make us think she hasn’t realized what she has been doing, she hasn’t controlled her actions,” Karaulova’s layer Alexander Karabanov told Interfax.
Senior researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, President of the Scientific Society for Caucasian Studies, Alexander Krylov, thinks that “the ISIS project brings not only regional struggles, but global ones. First of all, there is the struggle for people’s minds. This struggle is beyond state borders. The model of Western democracy, which prevailed after the ideology of communism, has sunk into oblivion and it was compromised after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It remained the only one, and it was dominant. We all built our economies, Western democracy with its parliaments, parties, etc. And the first project on a global scale, which became an alternative to the Western project, became the ‘Green International,’ which replaced the ‘Red International.’ It is a global caliphate. Those forces which disagreed with living according to Western canons, Western democracy, received this alternative. This strange attraction of this ‘Green International’ is based on this.”
“It is evil incarnate, but even students from good families, who study at the Department of Philosophy at Moscow State University, travel to Syria to fight for these ideals. There is something to think about. It is clear that it is urgent to work out a third alternative in order to have only two models of the world. The Western model with its advantages, but at the same time its obvious disadvantages, arouses rejection. The ‘Green International’ is also difficult to imagine in the future of this society, which is based on such methods: not even rivers, but seas of blood. There must be something else. Certainly, we can hardly expect that we can revive communism. But something should exist, some alternative should appear for humanity. Even if we smash ISIS up so some new alternatives will appear. Some of them may be even more brutal than this embodiment of this universal evil, which occurred in the form of ISIS,” the expert believes.
He thinks that it is a common challenge for all post-Soviet states: “It will be very difficult to fight terrorism without this, because it has an advantage of struggling for minds. It offers a dream. The temporary measure proposes a tough reality, which is inclined to be accepted, especially by young people. The majority are inclined to reject it actively.”
