Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Gigantic terrorist attack at a concert in Moscow in progress. At least 140 dead probably significantly higher. The concert hall is on fire and currently collapsing. Perpetrators unknown. Multiple shooters with AKs.
Edited to add: Looks like ISIS had claimed responsibility, Putin will be making a statement soon
Second Edit Reuters and Skynews are reporting a second attack at an emergency medical center at least 28 dead there. (Third edit: this seems to be an erroneous report based on a western news outlets mistranslation of a Russian news broadcast)
Fourth edit Putin and the FSB have made statements in the past hours claiming that the concert hall attackers were attempting to flee to Ukraine and had Ukrainian assistance in entering Russia to carry out the attack
Fifth Edit FSB alleges attackers were detained 85 miles from the Ukrainian border on a near a highway heading south. Attackers indicted in Russian court. They appear to have been tortured.
Sixth Edit FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov claims in official statement that the Ukraine, the United States and the United Kingdom were behind the attack
Since it seems like all parties are incentivized to lie here I propose a test that I will call the "Budanov test" in order to eventually determine who is likely culpable. People are missing the point when it comes to ISIS claiming to have done it. ISIS isn't the same as it was during the Obama era. It's been beheaded and is just a loose collection of various Islamic extremists. These guys specifically seem to have been really low IQ hired meat, with the whole op having been planned by others and them recruited through telegram. Anyone could contract them or the people that contracted them, there is no central command. Could be actual Islamic extremists or state actors and we won't ever know. It's like 'Anon' claiming to be behind a high profile hack.
When it comes to the response even if Russia has information that it was in fact Islamic extremists they will be incentivized to point fingers at Ukraine. The same is true for the opposing parties. Ukraine will deny and so will any western country if they are involved. None of the big players are likely to reveal specifics as this could compromise their intelligence gathering with little to gain in a low-trust post fact deepfake environment.
However, if Russia does in fact have information it believes points to Ukraine their response would potentially differ from their response if it's purely being used as propaganda to further war goals. They are likely to use the attack to further support for Ukraine war yes, but it's not clear that they'd want to escalate things much beyond their current level as this risks more western support and they are currently, albeit very slowly, winning the war.
If they do have information that points to it being planned in some way by Ukraine from the logic of a state actor this is a major escalation and would require a response so as to deter similar attacks in the future and not appear weak. In this case Russia would not only be incentivized to ramp up the usual bombings they would likely target the people involved which would be Budanov or people in the intelligence agencies that are involved with Ukraine's assassinations. A response like this occurred after the dugina, and cafe assassinations. Where Russia targeted the main Kiev hq of intelligence services and Budanov went off the radar and was rumoured dead or injured for a while.
So tl;dr if Budanov is still in Ukraine and no major attempt or escalation has been made towards him and/or Ukrainian intelligence within the next couple months, it was probably just run of the mill extremism. If we see some ramped up attempts at Budanov or targetted attacks on Ukrainian intelligence agencies then Russia at least suspects it was Ukraine.
I suppose there is also the case they suspect it was western backed, seems less likely to me. There could be retaliation via an islamic terror attack in the US or a western country, but given the upcoming elections and the geopolitical stakes for the great powers in an election between maximalist and isolationist parties, the state of the US border, and also the current turmoil in the middle east... it's probably not a useful indicator. An attack is too likely in the lead up to the election and too many groups are incentivized here.
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