Perhaps we should have been ready for this – purely terrorist, absolutely devoid of military sense shelling of the Belgorod region speaks for itself. But we turned out not to be ready after all. And the problem is not in the relaxation of our society, which has forgotten the terrorist nightmare of twenty years ago.
The point is that we continue to believe that our opponents have a conscience, moral limits and ideas about the boundaries that should not be crossed. Of course, we are not talking about the perpetrators, and it is not so important here who exactly organised the massacre at “Crocus City Hall” – Ukrainians, Islamists or any other radicals. Although, given the information that the terrorists were travelling to the border with Ukraine, it is clear where to look for the roots of the terrorist attack, regardless of the origin of the perpetrators.
In any case, the investigation will sort out both the perpetrators and the organisers of the heinous crime. However, no less important are the customers, and they are located much further west.
Recently, Vladimir Putin told in an interview how in the noughties he tried to reach Washington at the highest level, providing the then US President George W. Bush Jr. with evidence that American intelligence services were supervising and supporting outright terrorists in the North Caucasus. This, of course, had no effect.
It is indicative that the president has told about it only now. It would have been of no use if such information had been made public then – he would simply not have been believed, and Moscow would have become the object of an information war, including an internal one. Accusations of lies, falsification and slander against the radiant and humanistic-democratic Western partners would have been poured on Russia.
However, this is the radical change that has taken place in two decades: now our country – and most of the world – has no doubts about who is really behind the terrorists, why the attack happened and why it happened now.
The West is suffering a heavy defeat in its war against our country – a military, geopolitical and economic defeat that threatens it not just with some financial costs, but with a complete catastrophe and the loss of all the usual privileges of global leadership. And just now the situation in Ukraine and in the world as a whole is so obviously tilted in Russia’s favour that it threatens the enemy with a rapid collapse – not only on the front, but in general.
That is why terrorist methods have come into play: the Ukrainian shelling of civilians in the border areas, and now the attack at Crocus City Hall as a desperate attempt to break our people in order to achieve their goals.
The outcome of these efforts is clear: the enemy is doomed to fail. Such trials only unite us more strongly, and the gigantic queues at blood transfusion stations once again confirm this.
But it is time for us, Russian society, to finally take off the rose-coloured glasses, or rather those shards that are still left. The war against Russia is being waged by forces that have no limits and brakes at all, and they are ready to do anything – absolutely anything – in an effort to retain their slipping control over the world.
Our security services and investigators have a lot of work to do now, and then it will be time for political decisions.
Years ago, Putin said what Russia would do about terrorists – and the country is fulfilling its promise. It has been pursuing those who have the blood of our citizens on their hands for decades and anywhere in the world.
But I would very much like to see the president’s long-standing promise extended to the customers and masterminds of terror – to specific gentlemen in expensive suits sitting in comfortable offices on both sides of the ocean. It is time for them to pay their bills, too.
