March 28, 2024 • 42 mins
Discover the twists in the narrative as we unveil the chilling ISIS-K attack in Moscow and the subsequent political maneuvering of the Putin regime. Dana Lewis on the Kremlin's finger-pointing at Western nations and the manipulation of public perception. We expose the Kremlin's tactics, including the use of torture by Russian security services, and reveal the true culprits behind the mayhem. The discussion also spotlights the initial ISIS-K responsibility claims, which were quickly overshadowed by the Russian state media's distorted stories.
Venture into the ideological motivations driving Russia's aggressive stance in Ukraine with Matthew Schmidt, associate professor of national security and political science.
And, Joseph Shelze from The Soufan Center.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So you know, that's where I'm at.
I think it's ISIS-K.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I do not think it's connected to Ukraine, but I'm
sure we'll get into thatspecialization, specifically the
wars in Chechnya and unrest inDagestan, as well as the Russian
involvement military operationsin Syria hi everyone and
(00:41):
welcome to another edition ofBackstory.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm Dana Lewis.
In Vladimir Putin's Russia, thedark days of Kremlin-driven
disconnect from reality onlyseem to go from bad to bizarre.
Almost the moment the newsbroke that four terrorists had
opened fire at innocentconcertgoers in a Moscow music
hall it's called Kroka City youcould almost anticipate the
(01:05):
Putin regime would somehowimplicate the West.
Even though ISIS-K was claimingresponsibility for the attack
not their first against Russiantargets.
Even though Putin himself hadbeen warned by American
intelligence that an attackmight be in the offing, he
brushed it off, claimed it wasan attempt to interfere in
(01:25):
Russian elections, and criticssay he bears the full weight of
responsibility for allowing theattack to happen.
Never mind the facts, putin,the FSB, security service,
russian program media allblaming America and Britain and
Ukraine On this backstory.
(01:45):
The Soufan Center's JosephSchelze walks us through the
background leading up to thisISIS attack.
But first, security analystMatthew Schmidt.
All right, at the University ofNew Haven, associate Professor
of National Security andPolitical Science is Matthew
(02:07):
Schmidt.
Welcome, matthew.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's a great pleasure to be here, Dana.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's a great pleasure to talk to you because you're
also a strategic analyst inforeign affairs, us politics,
security, military matters andyou've taught strategic and
operational planning at theArmy's Command and General Staff
College and I mean that'scertainly worthy of a mention,
so it's great to have you.
Can I kick it off very quickly,asking you what is your take on
(02:33):
the attack in Russia on theCrocus City Music Hall?
Is there any doubt in your mindthat this was ISIS?
Kay?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
No, the great open sourcesource intelligence group
Bellingcat, their actuallyRussian affiliate, went out of
their way pretty muchimmediately after the attack and
found a series of photographsof the four suspected assailants
in Crocus City with otherpublications from ISIS-K earlier
and essentially, has you knowin my mind, has identified them
(03:04):
as longstanding operatives ofISIS-K.
So essentially, has you know inmy mind, has identified them as
long-standing operatives ofISIS-K.
So you know, that's where I'mat.
I think it's ISIS-K, absolutely.
I do not think it's connectedto Ukraine, but I'm sure we'll
get into that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Here's a front page article, for example, in
Moscow's argument and facts, asit calls itself a little loose
on the facts, but so quote weknow the architects of Crocus
attacks and who organized it.
Let them burn in hell.
All of this about Islamic Stateis rubbish.
Let them tell this to eachother other and who they were
(03:47):
referring to, as each other isin a front page article where
they put up pictures ofPresident Biden, ukrainian
President Zelensky, rishi Sunak,the Prime Minister of Britain
and the former Prime MinisterBoris Johnson.
What is going on there?
Because this media, as you wellknow, is state managed, so
that's a direct marching orderfrom the Kremlin to tie this to
(04:11):
Ukraine any way, any how.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I got to say I'm old enough to remember when
Argumenti Effecti was in fact anindependent newspaper and did
good reporting.
So it kind of breaks my heartevery time I see these outlets
now under the thumb of theKremlin.
This is what Putin's doing,right.
He is reaching out and he'sgoing to take advantage of the
(04:37):
situation.
It's important to, I think, toremember that he took I don't
know 12 hours to respond, eight,12 hours before he came out.
He did it by a canned video.
He didn't make himself availablefor questions, and this is what
happens when you lack a freeand independent press, right?
(04:57):
Nobody's verifying these thingsand you have a country that I
mean they tortured these guys,right?
If they in fact did this,indeed, let them burn in hell.
But you and I live indemocracies that at least have a
pretense towards you knowguilty until proven innocent.
And when you look at whatargument in fact he is saying
(05:18):
here, they're not even sayinglike suspected assailants or
accused.
They're just flat out sayingthese guys did it on the basis
of no due process.
And that's exactly what Putinwants.
He wants to amp up thisrhetoric.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
What do you make of that?
I mean, russia's a brutalsociety and the security
services certainly are.
Generally they don't have toaccount for anything that they
do with anybody in their custody.
But it is unusual for them toput out those videos, I mean, of
them beating these guys, ofelectrocuting these guys, of
(05:58):
cutting off the ear of one ofthem, who later appeared in the
courtroom with the ear bandaged.
I mean, that was done for areason and for effect, it seems
to me.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Oh yeah, that was.
I mean again, those things werefilmed by the security services
, by uniformed officers, andthen leaked.
There was no pretense even thatthis was somehow not supposed
to be leaked.
It was just put out thereimmediately and you know, it is
out there to drive up war fever.
And then there were reportsearly on that there were
(06:32):
anonymous sources coming out ofthe security services that were
saying that internally, theprofessionals in those services
had quickly ruled out Ukraine.
That is, they accepted thebasic logic that ISIS-K did this
.
Isis-k had plenty of reasons fordoing this.
They had attacked the Russianembassy last fall in Kabul,
russia.
This, I thought well, the FSBis saying this, that's pretty
(06:52):
unusual.
And then it just died.
And Putin comes out and gives aspeech and doubles and triples
(07:12):
down on this is really Ukraine.
And then the images come out ofthese guys being tortured and
no one is saying anythingnegatively about this tortured,
and no one is saying anythingnegatively about this.
No one in the press in Russiais saying look, guilty or
innocent, we shouldn't be doingthis, we shouldn't be treating
people this way.
And that's I mean, dana, that'sthe difference between Russia
(07:35):
and Ukraine.
That's the difference in whatpeople are fighting for really,
and I think we don't say thatoften enough think.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I think we don't say that often enough.
Fair point, um.
But at the same time I I tendto think that the russians were
furious that their theirpresident, some of them were
furious that their presidentdidn't take a warning from the
west seriously and discounted itand, in an appearance before
the fsb a couple of weeks before, saying it was a provocation
and designed to disrupt theelections, essentially.
(08:08):
And then they would be furiouswith the fact that the FSB and
the security services allowedthis terror attack to happen.
So suddenly, you know, they gottheir men and they beat them
senseless, probably withapplause from a lot of Russians.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Oh, I'm sure that's true, but I disagree with you,
please.
I don't think, if I may not,that you would ever stop a
professor in disagreeing, evenif you didn't may.
I do not think that mostRussians are blaming the Kremlin
.
I think that Putin engaged in avery classic response and for
most Russians, they have beenimbibing this idea that the West
(08:52):
is against them, that Moscow isfull of spies trying to subvert
the world historical order ofRussia.
Um, and and so I don't thinkthat actually hit very hard, and
one of the things I always liketo tell people is is they
should read Russian fairy tales.
This is a classic of Russianfairy tales, where essentially
(09:13):
bad things are happening and theczar isn't doing anything about
it.
And so the good, real Russians,right, like the real American,
real Brits, somewhere out therein the heartlands of these
places, right, Are, arebeseeching the czar, come and do
something right, and the czarfinally hears about it, right,
finally learns from honorableadvisors um, what's really going
(09:37):
on, instead of all thedishonorable advisors who are,
who are telling him lies, to, to, to, to cover their rears on
this right, and this is aclassic of what Putin has done.
He's saying it's not me.
It's not me, it's other peoplein the system.
If there's a mistake that'sgoing on, it's the defense
ministry, it's the securityservices right, and somebody's
had a role there.
But once it gets to me, I, theczar, do the right thing and
(10:01):
that's the game he's playingright here.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Although he didn't criticize anybody in this case,
not yet, not yet.
He's been completely not yet.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
He's been completely supportive of the FSB, I mean he
certainly hasn't called themout and hasn't said anything
about his own security apparatus.
Yeah, I mean you know, youheard again.
You heard reports.
I think they're true, but theyare unverified.
As far as I know, that it tookan hour for security services to
arrive on the scene.
But these have all been vague,because in Russian, when you say
(10:33):
security services, does thatmean like the special troops
that show up for these things,or does it mean ambulances and
police?
And the distinction betweenthese things, which is important
to ordinary Russians, isn'tclear to me as a Westerner.
Where I'm thinking, this meansthe police and medical personnel
.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I was at Beslan, the hostage-taking of school
children in Russia and where 300of them died.
And I can tell you by the, the,by the time the, the, the
special um anti-terror units gotto the scene and got organized,
and got even more disorganizedwhen they than they were in the
(11:15):
first place, uh, you know therewere already flames pouring out
of the building and and, uh,dozens and dozens of kids dead.
So I know the idea that theyraced to the scene in record
time.
I've never seen that happen inRussia, but anyway, that's kind
of a right-hand turn.
Alexander Bortnikov, the head ofthe FSB, said on Tuesday that
(11:39):
you know he believed Ukraine,along with the United States and
Britain, were involved in theattack on the concert hall.
Ukraine, along with the UnitedStates and Britain, were
involved in the attack on theconcert hall, dismissed as
nonsense by Britain and others.
But I mean this is kind of gonefrom a hint from Putin that
they were heading for theUkrainian border.
But I mean these are prettydirect allegations now, which
(12:10):
tends to make me wonder they aregoing to have to.
You know, I hate to use theword respond because they're not
.
They should be responding tothe Islamic State, but they are
going to hit Ukraine andpossibly Western interests,
pretty hard.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, back to what I was saying earlier, this idea
that somehow some professionalcadres inside security services
said internally hey, this isn'tUkraine, right, this is ISIS-K.
And then reads the politicalwins and comes out and says what
(12:43):
he says.
And so now Putin still hasn'tcome out as hard as Bortnikov or
Medvedev or these others, right, so he's letting his surrogates
lead the charge on this.
But you're right, I mean, nowhe has to hit hard.
So what's he doing?
He's obliterating Kharkiv rightnow.
It's terrible, right, he's hitKiev again.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And he has to do that , but the terrorists were
heading for Belarus.
But when he strengthened theborder they turned away and
maybe they were assist them ingoing after the Baltics and
making a land grab the SwalkyGap leading Lithuania to
(13:51):
Kaliningrad.
Is this nonsense or, in thewake of the terror attack, does
it get a little more traction?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
traction.
So 20 years ago, almostprobably to the day, I wrote a
piece in an obscure journalasking if Putin was pursuing a
policy of what was calledEurasianism.
What today we talk about islike the Ruskimir, the Russian
world right that some listenersmight know this term, all of
which is to say like insideacademic baseball here.
I am not a believer in therealist theory of this war.
I do not believe this war wasstarted because Putin felt like
(14:33):
NATO was a threat if NATO cameinto Ukraine, because it was
already in Estonia and themissiles would hit at the same
time from Estonia as they wouldfrom anywhere in Ukraine.
And so I think that this war isfundamentally ideological and
uh thus is not to be deterredeasily by sort of the classic
(14:54):
realist way of stacking up ourguns against their guns and
saying we have more or betterguns, so so stop, so stop.
That said, putin isn't stupid,he's, he is not irrational,
which is often what people sayabout world leaders, what they
don't like.
He's hideous, he's an autocrat,he's all of these things.
(15:17):
But he follows a logic.
It's his logic and he's he's.
It makes sense to him.
The trick is to decode thatlogic please, if you can help me
.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I lived in Russia for 12 years and I've covered Putin
since he came to power.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And here we go.
Putin believes, or has come tobelieve, in a theory called
Eurasianism or the Russian world, and this comes from a guy by
the name of Alexander Dugin.
If you remember, his daughterwas assassinated and he was seen
as probably being the maintarget.
He wrote a textbook in the 90scalled the Fundamentals of
(15:53):
Geopolitics, which was thishorrible mishmash of stealing
things from Carl Schmitt and theNazis and the Slavophiles in
the 19th century and all thiskind of stuff, and it basically
says that Russia is unique inworld history.
It's neither European, it's notdemocratic, it doesn't believe
in a pluralist society, itdoesn't believe in things like
gay rights If you look at MashaGessen's the New Yorker, she
(16:15):
wrote a brilliant book on thisabout the role that anti-gay
rights played in Putin'sformation and his ideology it's
not Asian right, it's not a kindof Asian despotism, it's
something unique and it'sreligious right.
So Putin converts in the early2000s and he imbibes the idea of
(16:42):
Russian orthodoxy and this ideathat Russia has to survive as a
culture, which of course meansit has to survive as a country,
but it has to survive as aculture in order to impart its
ideas of what it means to behuman in the future history of
the world, right, and so now youhave, this theory of Russian
culture is under attack and itmight be obliterated.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And that's what this is really about, because the one
place that has to be Not atheory, but a propaganda that is
spun by Putin and the Kremlin.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
It's propaganda that's spun by him, it's
ideology, it's a system ofbelief, right.
And the one place that isessential to this is Ukraine,
it's not Poland.
He doesn't see Poland as partof this worldview.
Poland's west.
He doesn't see Estonia as partof it.
It's Ukraine, right.
So, on the one hand,ideologically that's why he's
not going to invade Estonia orPoland or Lithuania Right, it
(17:42):
doesn't make sense.
On the other hand, what comesout of this worldview is without
Russia's military might, bothnuclear and conventional Russia
is just a large European statestate.
It's not a superpower.
There's no pretense to it, andPutin's not dumb.
(18:02):
So what he's learned from thewar is this sort of backwards,
ragtag army that started inUkraine has done pretty damn
well and has degraded hismilitary capacity an
extraordinary amount.
Even if Ukraine is in a badposition right now, russia has
lost more than it ever expectedin terms of its combat
effectiveness.
So if he creates a situation togo up against NATO, he's done.
(18:25):
He loses that military capacityand he loses the central place
that Russia holds in worldhistory, because he no longer
has any power.
He's just like everybody else,and so that's why I think that
he's not likely to do thosethings, and those are
psychological operations thatare aimed towards Western
(18:46):
publics to force us to not allowour political leaders to give
aid to Ukraine more than theyare our serious military
proposals.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
I was going to ask you.
I mean, some of this isdesigned to make the West and
Ukraine come to the negotiatingtable and accept the annexation
of the four regions that he'staken in eastern Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's where we're headed.
Just five minutes before Ilogged on to talk to you, mike
Johnson, the Speaker of theHouse, has come out publicly and
said he's trying to find a wayto fund Ukraine Extraordinary
news coming out of here rightnow.
We'll see what happens.
I'm not convinced he's going tobe able to do it, but in any
(19:33):
case, ukraine's been in a badposition all winter and into the
spring here.
Right, ukraine's been in a badposition all winter and into the
spring here, and it's aposition where where Russia,
especially now, if, using theexcuse about Kropotkoye City,
they can manage to pull togethersome kind of offensive, they
(19:57):
can.
They can take back Kharkiv inthat area that that the
Ukrainians took back in 2022,then he's in a position to sort
of force negotiations Again.
I'm not sure the Ukrainianswill do it, but I think they're
closer to it than they've everbeen.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I could talk to you for hours and I know we don't
have hours.
So I mean Kharkiv.
Today you have missilesslamming into apartment
buildings.
Today you have missilesslamming into apartment
buildings.
It looks like, you know, thebeginning of the bulldozing from
the air of, you know, a majorcenter in Ukraine and it's going
to be very tragic.
But just to sum up all of this,you know we've talked about how
(20:37):
you perceive President Putinand what his long-term
objectives are.
But all the rhetoric this weekin the wake of this terror
attack and there's been somestunning stuff on Russian
television, I mean against theWest and from the usual suspects
, you know, the Kremlinpropagandists.
But what is he preparing theRussian public for?
(20:59):
Do you think is he just shoringup his support for the war
continuing and the support forhim and his ability to keep a
stranglehold on the power inRussia, or do you think he's
about to launch into?
He's got his election, he's gothis other six years.
(21:19):
Do you think he's about tolaunch into?
He's got his election, he's gothis other six years.
Do you think he's preparingsomething now, whether that be
big mobilization or somethingelse like that?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I think he's.
He's coming out and he'scalling a war, war which he
hasn't been doing right.
He is moving from, uh, fromhiding the war from the major
russian public and the majorityof the russian public, from the
majority of the Russian public,by recruiting in the far off
areas of Siberia, and I thinkhe's going to start recruiting
more heavily in St Petersburgand Moscow regions in the
(21:48):
Northwest where the populationcenter is.
And he's able to do thatbecause he's going to raise the
flag and say if you love yourcountry, come get the people who
supported the terrorists thatblew up the music hall.
And his first move is Russianeeds artillery shells too.
It needs equipment.
It's facing an equipment andammo bottleneck in 2025.
(22:10):
So there's pressure on it to dowhat it can this year before it
faces that bottleneck, and itneeds people just as bad as
Ukraine does, and so he can't doa lot until he gets those
things.
No-transcript.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Matthew Schmidt, the associate professor at
University of New Haven.
I wish I was one of yourstudents and could sit in some
of your lectures, because you'vegot a lot of insight, and thank
you so much for sharing some ofthat.
It's really tremendous.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's been such a pleasure.
I'd love to come back.
Deal.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Thank you, Matthew.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
All right.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Joseph Shelsey is a research fellow at the Soufan
Group focusing on militaryaffairs and operational analysis
.
Joseph, that this attack isclassic ISIS-K and that the
group has for a long time had abone to pick with Russia.
Can you lay that out for me alittle bit?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, that's absolutely true, Dana, and thank
you for having me.
Russia has for a long time beenin the crosshairs of the
jihadist movement, startingaround the 1980s, you know,
during the Soviet Union days.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
The invasion of Afghanistan was a major trigger
for upset among Muslimcommunities around the world,
(24:23):
Following that general treatmentof Russian Muslim minorities
within Russia as well as thepost-Soviet states, has also
been a major motivator andfactor driving recruitment and
radicalization, specifically thewars in Chechnya and unrest in
Dagestan, as well as the Russianinvolvement military operations
in Syria.
Yeah, how ironic, by the way,that one of Russia's main
fighting forces in Ukraine,certainly in the initial year,
were Chechen fighters that werepledging their allegiance to
President Putin.
You'd think that that would bethe last group that would be on
(24:43):
the tip of the Russian spear inUkraine.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, that's right, it is a strange alliance, but I
think with the right amount ofpatronage networks and then
lining of pockets, a lot ofdifferent things are possible,
and I think that's what we sawplayed out in the Ukraine there.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, many talks.
How credible are claims on ISISwebsites that ISIS carried out
this attack at the K the crocusmusic Hall, this horrendous
attack on Friday?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I mean I would say that they're.
They're credible um.
This is consistent with um IsisCentral's um ideology and
specifically with isk is IslamicState Khorasan Provinces
tactics, techniques andprocedures.
This fits with their goals.
(25:46):
They've targeted Russia before,not only in propaganda, but
with suicide bombing against theRussian embassy in Kabul.
So it absolutely tracks andit's not, I wouldn't say,
surprising.
Maybe it's surprising that theRussian security services,
(26:09):
despite the warning of the USgovernment, were not able to
disrupt the plot.
That may be surprising, but no,I would say those are credible
claims.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Well, let's address that.
Why do you think that theRussian security services so
badly failed here?
Not to mention the fact thatthe president himself stood in
front of the FSB and said youknow, the warnings from the US
in Britain are a provocationdesigned to disrupt our
(26:40):
elections.
So I mean he undermined it fromthe beginning.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Sure.
Yeah, I think that it's acombination of factors.
I think hubris was part of it.
I think their overconfidenceand their ability to identify
and disrupt plots within Russiaidentify and disrupt plots
within Russia.
I also think there's an obviouslevel of mistrust between the
(27:04):
US, russia and the UK, andthat's understandable given the
circumstances.
The other thing is that most oftheir security establishment is
no longer focused on domesticterrorism, jihadist terrorism
within Russia.
They've shifted their focusalmost entirely to Ukraine, and
so it's not beyond the pale.
(27:27):
It's not out of the questionthat something like this would
have been missed by a securityservice that's extremely
overtaxed and distracted, not tomention the number of
casualties that a lot of thefirst responders with units, for
example, like RoskopardiyaSpecial Forces the first
(27:49):
responders to an incident likethis typically the casualties
that those units received in theopening days of the war in
Ukraine.
So a lot of the folks thatwould have been addressing this
threat prior to execution andthen post-execution they're no
longer around or they're focusedelsewhere.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
So in any other society they would be calling
for the heads of government andfor, certainly, the security
services heads for failing here.
So is there some smoke andmirrors here as to why?
Does that answer part of thequestion as to why Putin
(28:31):
immediately started accusingUkraine and the United States
and Britain of carrying out thisattack?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I'd say that's probably part of it, it is.
I mean, on top of the tragedyof it, it's an enormously
embarrassing event for PresidentPutin and for the Russian
security services.
So it is absolutely reasonableto expect them to try to react
(29:00):
in a way that would save facefor them or distract from the
intelligence failure that led tothis.
And, of course, who else toblame than first the Ukrainians
and followed by the, followed bythe U?
S and the UK?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I guess, knowing Russia the way I do, that I see
some of this is quite ominous,because not only will they try
to save face by doing this, byblaming Ukraine, um but I would
suspect that there will be somepretty serious payback payback
in Russian terms initiatedagainst I don't know, I don't
(29:42):
want to say Western targets, butcertainly Ukraine itself, to
satisfy the anger within Russia.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I don't see a direct path for escalation as a result
of this in the war in Ukrainebeyond what has already been
pursued by the Russian state.
I think what is feasible andkind of matches up with what
you're saying is that there'sabsolutely going to be internal
crackdowns as a result of thisIn a country where it's already
(30:17):
very, very difficult andpotentially fatal to be
political opposition.
It's going to capitalize onthis one as well, um to
institute further crackdowns onpolitical opponents and critics
(30:45):
as well as, um you know, themuslim community at large and
within russia.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah, you know it's hard to imagine him tightening
the screws any more than healready has.
But yeah, it may.
It may provide some fuel forthe Kremlin now, after the
re-election, which there wasalready a lot of speculation
anyway.
And now you know, add in thisthat Russia will go to a much
bigger mobilization to try andjust overwhelm Ukraine in.
(31:13):
You know what people arespeculating could be a summer
offensive.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, I think that that's something that's been in
the cards for a while and, yeah,like I said, they're not going
to let this.
The security establishment andPutin's regime are not going to
let this crisis go to waste, andso if this is yet another
talking point that they can useto justify what will be an
unpopular move to pursue anotherround of mobilization, they
(31:46):
will use this to justify it insome ways.
However tenuous that link is,they will try to draw that
either through direct statementsor through parroting in the
media.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Can the tide be turned here?
I mean, we're past a failedcounteroffensive by Ukraine,
largely failed.
The Russians through the winternow are gaining some ground,
maybe not as quickly as Putinwould like everybody to believe,
but they're certainly chippingaway at Ukrainian dug-in
(32:23):
positions.
Is there a danger you thinkthat Russia can break through
Ukrainian lines if thisammunition and Western support
isn't very quickly forthcoming?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Well, there's absolutely a danger.
There's a risk of it, and thelonger that Western support,
lethal aid, is delayed, the morethat risk increases.
I think that the Ukrainianmilitary is the Russians' favor
on the battlefield and I'mworried about the amount of
(33:08):
ammunition stocks, equipment,vehicles that the Ukrainians
have in reserve, their abilityto rotate forces off of the
front lines for rest as well asfor additional training lines,
for for rest um as well as forfor additional training um, and
I I'm I'm also concerned aboutthe uh, the lack or the absence
(33:30):
of a significant fortified lineto buttress the ukrainian
defense um, akin to what we sawthe russians do with the
surovikin line.
Something like that on theUkrainian side doesn't exist at
the same scale and with thetalking points largely
(33:50):
surrounding a shift towards adefensive posture for this year
for the Ukrainians, somethinglike that will be necessary, if
not vital.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Can I ask your read Joseph Shelsey on some of the
threats that some of the Russianparliamentarians have made
former President Medvedev havemade to the Baltics.
And then now you have todayPresident Lukashenko of Belarus
talking about threatening theBaltics and that Belarus
(34:25):
military potentiallyparticipating in a land grab to
link Russia and Belarus toKaliningrad it's called the
Suwalki Gap Sure and my questionmaybe has two parts to it and
that is is that a distraction?
And my question maybe has twoparts to it and that is is that
a distraction?
Is that meant to threaten theWest like nuclear weapons do,
(34:54):
and say you know there better bea peace deal at some point here
.
You better recognize the landwe've taken in eastern Ukraine,
or are they serious?
I mean, do you think that theymay, may push um and try to go
against nato?
These are nato countries that'sright.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, I mean, crossing the suwalki gap would
be, uh, would trigger article 5,which would have a whole
cascade of consequences for forrussia and and its allies um,
belarus among them, and they'reaware of that, I have to believe
(35:26):
.
I think that there are a coupleof reasons for statements like
this.
I've heard it describedspecifically about Medvedev is
that he's kind of a he's used totest some of the more
ridiculous sounding and he'sused to test some of the more
ridiculous sounding policy ideasthat come out of the Kremlin or
that are circulating in thehalls of the Kremlin, and he's
(35:50):
someone that can push theseideas just to see what kind of
reaction they get from thepublic, from international
audiences.
So I think there's an elementof that.
But I also think there's adeterrent element.
(36:25):
It is posturing to show, hey,we do take this seriously,
russia has the capability toclose the Swahili gap in the
near term, question of whetheror not they can retain that
territory in the face of a NATOresponse.
So it's deterrent in that wayand it shows a degree of
capability or menace, I think.
And then the other piece is itcommunicates to a domestic
audience.
I think that the Russian, youknow Vladimir Putin's base wants
to see a strong Russia, andstatements like those support
(36:47):
that image of the Russian stateand of themselves.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
So just to follow up and finish, really, you say that
they could probably take theSwahili gap and then it would
take NATO some time to respond,and whether they could hold it
or not, whetherussians couldhold it or not, is a question.
I mean, this has been talkedabout for years.
It's a very likely scenario.
Why has, why has nato not builta better defense there so that
(37:19):
there's no way that the Russianswould even attempt it?
I mean, it's almost likethere's an invitation by lack of
NATO muscle forward deployed.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Well, I think that's the benefit of having a nuclear
alliance.
You don't need to rely on thesame degree of forward manpoweri
Gap.
But it does inform NATO'sdisposition and its policy of
(38:09):
defense.
Nato doesn't expect to defeatan initial Russian incursion
into NATO territory.
It's not realistic.
Look at the Baltic states.
They expect to delay it,disrupt it and then have the
(38:30):
logistics capacity and base inorder to receive and move onward
material manpower in order tocounterattack and reclaim that
territory.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Joseph, chelsea, joseph, good to talk to you
again.
I really appreciate it and I'veasked you to speculate on a lot
of stuff and it's hard, butthat's kind of the lay of the
land right now.
With Russia, it's hard to knowwhere they're heading and what
they intend to do and I guesseverybody has to sit back and
kind of anticipate the what ifsand I appreciate you
entertaining some of that.
Yeah, sure, happy to do it.
And that's our backstory onRussia and the ISIS-K terror
(39:14):
attack.
You can feel the war in Ukraineis about to get worse in the
coming months, mostly civilianareas rudely being targeted by
Russian missiles, and thefunding to enable Ukraine to
fight back is still stalled inWashington.
I'm Dana Lewis.
Thanks for listening toBackstory Backstory, by the way,
also available on my YouTubechannel.
(39:36):
Share the podcast please.
No-transcript.
So you know, that's where I'm at.
I think it's ISIS-K.
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I do not think it's connected to Ukraine, but I'm
sure we'll get into thatspecialization, specifically the
wars in Chechnya and unrest inDagestan, as well as the Russian
involvement military operationsin Syria hi everyone and
(00:41):
welcome to another edition ofBackstory.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm Dana Lewis.
In Vladimir Putin's Russia, thedark days of Kremlin-driven
disconnect from reality onlyseem to go from bad to bizarre.
Almost the moment the newsbroke that four terrorists had
opened fire at innocentconcertgoers in a Moscow music
hall it's called Kroka City youcould almost anticipate the
(01:05):
Putin regime would somehowimplicate the West.
Even though ISIS-K was claimingresponsibility for the attack
not their first against Russiantargets.
Even though Putin himself hadbeen warned by American
intelligence that an attackmight be in the offing, he
brushed it off, claimed it wasan attempt to interfere in
(01:25):
Russian elections, and criticssay he bears the full weight of
responsibility for allowing theattack to happen.
Never mind the facts, putin,the FSB, security service,
russian program media allblaming America and Britain and
Ukraine On this backstory.
(01:45):
The Soufan Center's JosephSchelze walks us through the
background leading up to thisISIS attack.
But first, security analystMatthew Schmidt.
All right, at the University ofNew Haven, associate Professor
of National Security andPolitical Science is Matthew
(02:07):
Schmidt.
Welcome, matthew.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's a great pleasure to be here, Dana.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's a great pleasure to talk to you because you're
also a strategic analyst inforeign affairs, us politics,
security, military matters andyou've taught strategic and
operational planning at theArmy's Command and General Staff
College and I mean that'scertainly worthy of a mention,
so it's great to have you.
Can I kick it off very quickly,asking you what is your take on
(02:33):
the attack in Russia on theCrocus City Music Hall?
Is there any doubt in your mindthat this was ISIS?
Kay?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
No, the great open sourcesource intelligence group
Bellingcat, their actuallyRussian affiliate, went out of
their way pretty muchimmediately after the attack and
found a series of photographsof the four suspected assailants
in Crocus City with otherpublications from ISIS-K earlier
and essentially, has you knowin my mind, has identified them
(03:04):
as longstanding operatives ofISIS-K.
So essentially, has you know inmy mind, has identified them as
long-standing operatives ofISIS-K.
So you know, that's where I'mat.
I think it's ISIS-K, absolutely.
I do not think it's connectedto Ukraine, but I'm sure we'll
get into that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Here's a front page article, for example, in
Moscow's argument and facts, asit calls itself a little loose
on the facts, but so quote weknow the architects of Crocus
attacks and who organized it.
Let them burn in hell.
All of this about Islamic Stateis rubbish.
Let them tell this to eachother other and who they were
(03:47):
referring to, as each other isin a front page article where
they put up pictures ofPresident Biden, ukrainian
President Zelensky, rishi Sunak,the Prime Minister of Britain
and the former Prime MinisterBoris Johnson.
What is going on there?
Because this media, as you wellknow, is state managed, so
that's a direct marching orderfrom the Kremlin to tie this to
(04:11):
Ukraine any way, any how.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I got to say I'm old enough to remember when
Argumenti Effecti was in fact anindependent newspaper and did
good reporting.
So it kind of breaks my heartevery time I see these outlets
now under the thumb of theKremlin.
This is what Putin's doing,right.
He is reaching out and he'sgoing to take advantage of the
(04:37):
situation.
It's important to, I think, toremember that he took I don't
know 12 hours to respond, eight,12 hours before he came out.
He did it by a canned video.
He didn't make himself availablefor questions, and this is what
happens when you lack a freeand independent press, right?
(04:57):
Nobody's verifying these thingsand you have a country that I
mean they tortured these guys,right?
If they in fact did this,indeed, let them burn in hell.
But you and I live indemocracies that at least have a
pretense towards you knowguilty until proven innocent.
And when you look at whatargument in fact he is saying
(05:18):
here, they're not even sayinglike suspected assailants or
accused.
They're just flat out sayingthese guys did it on the basis
of no due process.
And that's exactly what Putinwants.
He wants to amp up thisrhetoric.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
What do you make of that?
I mean, russia's a brutalsociety and the security
services certainly are.
Generally they don't have toaccount for anything that they
do with anybody in their custody.
But it is unusual for them toput out those videos, I mean, of
them beating these guys, ofelectrocuting these guys, of
(05:58):
cutting off the ear of one ofthem, who later appeared in the
courtroom with the ear bandaged.
I mean, that was done for areason and for effect, it seems
to me.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Oh yeah, that was.
I mean again, those things werefilmed by the security services
, by uniformed officers, andthen leaked.
There was no pretense even thatthis was somehow not supposed
to be leaked.
It was just put out thereimmediately and you know, it is
out there to drive up war fever.
And then there were reportsearly on that there were
(06:32):
anonymous sources coming out ofthe security services that were
saying that internally, theprofessionals in those services
had quickly ruled out Ukraine.
That is, they accepted thebasic logic that ISIS-K did this
.
Isis-k had plenty of reasons fordoing this.
They had attacked the Russianembassy last fall in Kabul,
russia.
This, I thought well, the FSBis saying this, that's pretty
(06:52):
unusual.
And then it just died.
And Putin comes out and gives aspeech and doubles and triples
(07:12):
down on this is really Ukraine.
And then the images come out ofthese guys being tortured and
no one is saying anythingnegatively about this tortured,
and no one is saying anythingnegatively about this.
No one in the press in Russiais saying look, guilty or
innocent, we shouldn't be doingthis, we shouldn't be treating
people this way.
And that's I mean, dana, that'sthe difference between Russia
(07:35):
and Ukraine.
That's the difference in whatpeople are fighting for really,
and I think we don't say thatoften enough think.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I think we don't say that often enough.
Fair point, um.
But at the same time I I tendto think that the russians were
furious that their theirpresident, some of them were
furious that their presidentdidn't take a warning from the
west seriously and discounted itand, in an appearance before
the fsb a couple of weeks before, saying it was a provocation
and designed to disrupt theelections, essentially.
(08:08):
And then they would be furiouswith the fact that the FSB and
the security services allowedthis terror attack to happen.
So suddenly, you know, they gottheir men and they beat them
senseless, probably withapplause from a lot of Russians.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Oh, I'm sure that's true, but I disagree with you,
please.
I don't think, if I may not,that you would ever stop a
professor in disagreeing, evenif you didn't may.
I do not think that mostRussians are blaming the Kremlin
.
I think that Putin engaged in avery classic response and for
most Russians, they have beenimbibing this idea that the West
(08:52):
is against them, that Moscow isfull of spies trying to subvert
the world historical order ofRussia.
Um, and and so I don't thinkthat actually hit very hard, and
one of the things I always liketo tell people is is they
should read Russian fairy tales.
This is a classic of Russianfairy tales, where essentially
(09:13):
bad things are happening and theczar isn't doing anything about
it.
And so the good, real Russians,right, like the real American,
real Brits, somewhere out therein the heartlands of these
places, right, Are, arebeseeching the czar, come and do
something right, and the czarfinally hears about it, right,
finally learns from honorableadvisors um, what's really going
(09:37):
on, instead of all thedishonorable advisors who are,
who are telling him lies, to, to, to, to cover their rears on
this right, and this is aclassic of what Putin has done.
He's saying it's not me.
It's not me, it's other peoplein the system.
If there's a mistake that'sgoing on, it's the defense
ministry, it's the securityservices right, and somebody's
had a role there.
But once it gets to me, I, theczar, do the right thing and
(10:01):
that's the game he's playingright here.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Although he didn't criticize anybody in this case,
not yet, not yet.
He's been completely not yet.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
He's been completely supportive of the FSB, I mean he
certainly hasn't called themout and hasn't said anything
about his own security apparatus.
Yeah, I mean you know, youheard again.
You heard reports.
I think they're true, but theyare unverified.
As far as I know, that it tookan hour for security services to
arrive on the scene.
But these have all been vague,because in Russian, when you say
(10:33):
security services, does thatmean like the special troops
that show up for these things,or does it mean ambulances and
police?
And the distinction betweenthese things, which is important
to ordinary Russians, isn'tclear to me as a Westerner.
Where I'm thinking, this meansthe police and medical personnel
.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I was at Beslan, the hostage-taking of school
children in Russia and where 300of them died.
And I can tell you by the, the,by the time the, the, the
special um anti-terror units gotto the scene and got organized,
and got even more disorganizedwhen they than they were in the
(11:15):
first place, uh, you know therewere already flames pouring out
of the building and and, uh,dozens and dozens of kids dead.
So I know the idea that theyraced to the scene in record
time.
I've never seen that happen inRussia, but anyway, that's kind
of a right-hand turn.
Alexander Bortnikov, the head ofthe FSB, said on Tuesday that
(11:39):
you know he believed Ukraine,along with the United States and
Britain, were involved in theattack on the concert hall.
Ukraine, along with the UnitedStates and Britain, were
involved in the attack on theconcert hall, dismissed as
nonsense by Britain and others.
But I mean this is kind of gonefrom a hint from Putin that
they were heading for theUkrainian border.
But I mean these are prettydirect allegations now, which
(12:10):
tends to make me wonder they aregoing to have to.
You know, I hate to use theword respond because they're not
.
They should be responding tothe Islamic State, but they are
going to hit Ukraine andpossibly Western interests,
pretty hard.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, back to what I was saying earlier, this idea
that somehow some professionalcadres inside security services
said internally hey, this isn'tUkraine, right, this is ISIS-K.
And then reads the politicalwins and comes out and says what
(12:43):
he says.
And so now Putin still hasn'tcome out as hard as Bortnikov or
Medvedev or these others, right, so he's letting his surrogates
lead the charge on this.
But you're right, I mean, nowhe has to hit hard.
So what's he doing?
He's obliterating Kharkiv rightnow.
It's terrible, right, he's hitKiev again.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And he has to do that , but the terrorists were
heading for Belarus.
But when he strengthened theborder they turned away and
maybe they were assist them ingoing after the Baltics and
making a land grab the SwalkyGap leading Lithuania to
(13:51):
Kaliningrad.
Is this nonsense or, in thewake of the terror attack, does
it get a little more traction?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
traction.
So 20 years ago, almostprobably to the day, I wrote a
piece in an obscure journalasking if Putin was pursuing a
policy of what was calledEurasianism.
What today we talk about islike the Ruskimir, the Russian
world right that some listenersmight know this term, all of
which is to say like insideacademic baseball here.
I am not a believer in therealist theory of this war.
I do not believe this war wasstarted because Putin felt like
(14:33):
NATO was a threat if NATO cameinto Ukraine, because it was
already in Estonia and themissiles would hit at the same
time from Estonia as they wouldfrom anywhere in Ukraine.
And so I think that this war isfundamentally ideological and
uh thus is not to be deterredeasily by sort of the classic
(14:54):
realist way of stacking up ourguns against their guns and
saying we have more or betterguns, so so stop, so stop.
That said, putin isn't stupid,he's, he is not irrational,
which is often what people sayabout world leaders, what they
don't like.
He's hideous, he's an autocrat,he's all of these things.
(15:17):
But he follows a logic.
It's his logic and he's he's.
It makes sense to him.
The trick is to decode thatlogic please, if you can help me
.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I lived in Russia for 12 years and I've covered Putin
since he came to power.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
And here we go.
Putin believes, or has come tobelieve, in a theory called
Eurasianism or the Russian world, and this comes from a guy by
the name of Alexander Dugin.
If you remember, his daughterwas assassinated and he was seen
as probably being the maintarget.
He wrote a textbook in the 90scalled the Fundamentals of
(15:53):
Geopolitics, which was thishorrible mishmash of stealing
things from Carl Schmitt and theNazis and the Slavophiles in
the 19th century and all thiskind of stuff, and it basically
says that Russia is unique inworld history.
It's neither European, it's notdemocratic, it doesn't believe
in a pluralist society, itdoesn't believe in things like
gay rights If you look at MashaGessen's the New Yorker, she
(16:15):
wrote a brilliant book on thisabout the role that anti-gay
rights played in Putin'sformation and his ideology it's
not Asian right, it's not a kindof Asian despotism, it's
something unique and it'sreligious right.
So Putin converts in the early2000s and he imbibes the idea of
(16:42):
Russian orthodoxy and this ideathat Russia has to survive as a
culture, which of course meansit has to survive as a country,
but it has to survive as aculture in order to impart its
ideas of what it means to behuman in the future history of
the world, right, and so now youhave, this theory of Russian
culture is under attack and itmight be obliterated.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And that's what this is really about, because the one
place that has to be Not atheory, but a propaganda that is
spun by Putin and the Kremlin.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
It's propaganda that's spun by him, it's
ideology, it's a system ofbelief, right.
And the one place that isessential to this is Ukraine,
it's not Poland.
He doesn't see Poland as partof this worldview.
Poland's west.
He doesn't see Estonia as partof it.
It's Ukraine, right.
So, on the one hand,ideologically that's why he's
not going to invade Estonia orPoland or Lithuania Right, it
(17:42):
doesn't make sense.
On the other hand, what comesout of this worldview is without
Russia's military might, bothnuclear and conventional Russia
is just a large European statestate.
It's not a superpower.
There's no pretense to it, andPutin's not dumb.
(18:02):
So what he's learned from thewar is this sort of backwards,
ragtag army that started inUkraine has done pretty damn
well and has degraded hismilitary capacity an
extraordinary amount.
Even if Ukraine is in a badposition right now, russia has
lost more than it ever expectedin terms of its combat
effectiveness.
So if he creates a situation togo up against NATO, he's done.
(18:25):
He loses that military capacityand he loses the central place
that Russia holds in worldhistory, because he no longer
has any power.
He's just like everybody else,and so that's why I think that
he's not likely to do thosethings, and those are
psychological operations thatare aimed towards Western
(18:46):
publics to force us to not allowour political leaders to give
aid to Ukraine more than theyare our serious military
proposals.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
I was going to ask you.
I mean, some of this isdesigned to make the West and
Ukraine come to the negotiatingtable and accept the annexation
of the four regions that he'staken in eastern Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's where we're headed.
Just five minutes before Ilogged on to talk to you, mike
Johnson, the Speaker of theHouse, has come out publicly and
said he's trying to find a wayto fund Ukraine Extraordinary
news coming out of here rightnow.
We'll see what happens.
I'm not convinced he's going tobe able to do it, but in any
(19:33):
case, ukraine's been in a badposition all winter and into the
spring here.
Right, ukraine's been in a badposition all winter and into the
spring here, and it's aposition where where Russia,
especially now, if, using theexcuse about Kropotkoye City,
they can manage to pull togethersome kind of offensive, they
(19:57):
can.
They can take back Kharkiv inthat area that that the
Ukrainians took back in 2022,then he's in a position to sort
of force negotiations Again.
I'm not sure the Ukrainianswill do it, but I think they're
closer to it than they've everbeen.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I could talk to you for hours and I know we don't
have hours.
So I mean Kharkiv.
Today you have missilesslamming into apartment
buildings.
Today you have missilesslamming into apartment
buildings.
It looks like, you know, thebeginning of the bulldozing from
the air of, you know, a majorcenter in Ukraine and it's going
to be very tragic.
But just to sum up all of this,you know we've talked about how
(20:37):
you perceive President Putinand what his long-term
objectives are.
But all the rhetoric this weekin the wake of this terror
attack and there's been somestunning stuff on Russian
television, I mean against theWest and from the usual suspects
, you know, the Kremlinpropagandists.
But what is he preparing theRussian public for?
(20:59):
Do you think is he just shoringup his support for the war
continuing and the support forhim and his ability to keep a
stranglehold on the power inRussia, or do you think he's
about to launch into?
He's got his election, he's gothis other six years.
(21:19):
Do you think he's about tolaunch into?
He's got his election, he's gothis other six years.
Do you think he's preparingsomething now, whether that be
big mobilization or somethingelse like that?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I think he's.
He's coming out and he'scalling a war, war which he
hasn't been doing right.
He is moving from, uh, fromhiding the war from the major
russian public and the majorityof the russian public, from the
majority of the Russian public,by recruiting in the far off
areas of Siberia, and I thinkhe's going to start recruiting
more heavily in St Petersburgand Moscow regions in the
(21:48):
Northwest where the populationcenter is.
And he's able to do thatbecause he's going to raise the
flag and say if you love yourcountry, come get the people who
supported the terrorists thatblew up the music hall.
And his first move is Russianeeds artillery shells too.
It needs equipment.
It's facing an equipment andammo bottleneck in 2025.
(22:10):
So there's pressure on it to dowhat it can this year before it
faces that bottleneck, and itneeds people just as bad as
Ukraine does, and so he can't doa lot until he gets those
things.
No-transcript.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Matthew Schmidt, the associate professor at
University of New Haven.
I wish I was one of yourstudents and could sit in some
of your lectures, because you'vegot a lot of insight, and thank
you so much for sharing some ofthat.
It's really tremendous.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It's been such a pleasure.
I'd love to come back.
Deal.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Thank you, Matthew.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
All right.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Joseph Shelsey is a research fellow at the Soufan
Group focusing on militaryaffairs and operational analysis
.
Joseph, that this attack isclassic ISIS-K and that the
group has for a long time had abone to pick with Russia.
Can you lay that out for me alittle bit?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, that's absolutely true, Dana, and thank
you for having me.
Russia has for a long time beenin the crosshairs of the
jihadist movement, startingaround the 1980s, you know,
during the Soviet Union days.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
The invasion of Afghanistan was a major trigger
for upset among Muslimcommunities around the world,
(24:23):
Following that general treatmentof Russian Muslim minorities
within Russia as well as thepost-Soviet states, has also
been a major motivator andfactor driving recruitment and
radicalization, specifically thewars in Chechnya and unrest in
Dagestan, as well as the Russianinvolvement military operations
in Syria.
Yeah, how ironic, by the way,that one of Russia's main
fighting forces in Ukraine,certainly in the initial year,
were Chechen fighters that werepledging their allegiance to
President Putin.
You'd think that that would bethe last group that would be on
(24:43):
the tip of the Russian spear inUkraine.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, that's right, it is a strange alliance, but I
think with the right amount ofpatronage networks and then
lining of pockets, a lot ofdifferent things are possible,
and I think that's what we sawplayed out in the Ukraine there.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, many talks.
How credible are claims on ISISwebsites that ISIS carried out
this attack at the K the crocusmusic Hall, this horrendous
attack on Friday?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
I mean I would say that they're.
They're credible um.
This is consistent with um IsisCentral's um ideology and
specifically with isk is IslamicState Khorasan Provinces
tactics, techniques andprocedures.
This fits with their goals.
(25:46):
They've targeted Russia before,not only in propaganda, but
with suicide bombing against theRussian embassy in Kabul.
So it absolutely tracks andit's not, I wouldn't say,
surprising.
Maybe it's surprising that theRussian security services,
(26:09):
despite the warning of the USgovernment, were not able to
disrupt the plot.
That may be surprising, but no,I would say those are credible
claims.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Well, let's address that.
Why do you think that theRussian security services so
badly failed here?
Not to mention the fact thatthe president himself stood in
front of the FSB and said youknow, the warnings from the US
in Britain are a provocationdesigned to disrupt our
(26:40):
elections.
So I mean he undermined it fromthe beginning.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Sure.
Yeah, I think that it's acombination of factors.
I think hubris was part of it.
I think their overconfidenceand their ability to identify
and disrupt plots within Russiaidentify and disrupt plots
within Russia.
I also think there's an obviouslevel of mistrust between the
(27:04):
US, russia and the UK, andthat's understandable given the
circumstances.
The other thing is that most oftheir security establishment is
no longer focused on domesticterrorism, jihadist terrorism
within Russia.
They've shifted their focusalmost entirely to Ukraine, and
so it's not beyond the pale.
(27:27):
It's not out of the questionthat something like this would
have been missed by a securityservice that's extremely
overtaxed and distracted, not tomention the number of
casualties that a lot of thefirst responders with units, for
example, like RoskopardiyaSpecial Forces the first
(27:49):
responders to an incident likethis typically the casualties
that those units received in theopening days of the war in
Ukraine.
So a lot of the folks thatwould have been addressing this
threat prior to execution andthen post-execution they're no
longer around or they're focusedelsewhere.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
So in any other society they would be calling
for the heads of government andfor, certainly, the security
services heads for failing here.
So is there some smoke andmirrors here as to why?
Does that answer part of thequestion as to why Putin
(28:31):
immediately started accusingUkraine and the United States
and Britain of carrying out thisattack?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I'd say that's probably part of it, it is.
I mean, on top of the tragedyof it, it's an enormously
embarrassing event for PresidentPutin and for the Russian
security services.
So it is absolutely reasonableto expect them to try to react
(29:00):
in a way that would save facefor them or distract from the
intelligence failure that led tothis.
And, of course, who else toblame than first the Ukrainians
and followed by the, followed bythe U?
S and the UK?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I guess, knowing Russia the way I do, that I see
some of this is quite ominous,because not only will they try
to save face by doing this, byblaming Ukraine, um but I would
suspect that there will be somepretty serious payback payback
in Russian terms initiatedagainst I don't know, I don't
(29:42):
want to say Western targets, butcertainly Ukraine itself, to
satisfy the anger within Russia.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I don't see a direct path for escalation as a result
of this in the war in Ukrainebeyond what has already been
pursued by the Russian state.
I think what is feasible andkind of matches up with what
you're saying is that there'sabsolutely going to be internal
crackdowns as a result of thisIn a country where it's already
(30:17):
very, very difficult andpotentially fatal to be
political opposition.
It's going to capitalize onthis one as well, um to
institute further crackdowns onpolitical opponents and critics
(30:45):
as well as, um you know, themuslim community at large and
within russia.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah, you know it's hard to imagine him tightening
the screws any more than healready has.
But yeah, it may.
It may provide some fuel forthe Kremlin now, after the
re-election, which there wasalready a lot of speculation
anyway.
And now you know, add in thisthat Russia will go to a much
bigger mobilization to try andjust overwhelm Ukraine in.
(31:13):
You know what people arespeculating could be a summer
offensive.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, I think that that's something that's been in
the cards for a while and, yeah,like I said, they're not going
to let this.
The security establishment andPutin's regime are not going to
let this crisis go to waste, andso if this is yet another
talking point that they can useto justify what will be an
unpopular move to pursue anotherround of mobilization, they
(31:46):
will use this to justify it insome ways.
However tenuous that link is,they will try to draw that
either through direct statementsor through parroting in the
media.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Can the tide be turned here?
I mean, we're past a failedcounteroffensive by Ukraine,
largely failed.
The Russians through the winternow are gaining some ground,
maybe not as quickly as Putinwould like everybody to believe,
but they're certainly chippingaway at Ukrainian dug-in
(32:23):
positions.
Is there a danger you thinkthat Russia can break through
Ukrainian lines if thisammunition and Western support
isn't very quickly forthcoming?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Well, there's absolutely a danger.
There's a risk of it, and thelonger that Western support,
lethal aid, is delayed, the morethat risk increases.
I think that the Ukrainianmilitary is the Russians' favor
on the battlefield and I'mworried about the amount of
(33:08):
ammunition stocks, equipment,vehicles that the Ukrainians
have in reserve, their abilityto rotate forces off of the
front lines for rest as well asfor additional training lines,
for for rest um as well as forfor additional training um, and
I I'm I'm also concerned aboutthe uh, the lack or the absence
(33:30):
of a significant fortified lineto buttress the ukrainian
defense um, akin to what we sawthe russians do with the
surovikin line.
Something like that on theUkrainian side doesn't exist at
the same scale and with thetalking points largely
(33:50):
surrounding a shift towards adefensive posture for this year
for the Ukrainians, somethinglike that will be necessary, if
not vital.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Can I ask your read Joseph Shelsey on some of the
threats that some of the Russianparliamentarians have made
former President Medvedev havemade to the Baltics.
And then now you have todayPresident Lukashenko of Belarus
talking about threatening theBaltics and that Belarus
(34:25):
military potentiallyparticipating in a land grab to
link Russia and Belarus toKaliningrad it's called the
Suwalki Gap Sure and my questionmaybe has two parts to it and
that is is that a distraction?
And my question maybe has twoparts to it and that is is that
a distraction?
Is that meant to threaten theWest like nuclear weapons do,
(34:54):
and say you know there better bea peace deal at some point here
.
You better recognize the landwe've taken in eastern Ukraine,
or are they serious?
I mean, do you think that theymay, may push um and try to go
against nato?
These are nato countries that'sright.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, I mean, crossing the suwalki gap would
be, uh, would trigger article 5,which would have a whole
cascade of consequences for forrussia and and its allies um,
belarus among them, and they'reaware of that, I have to believe
(35:26):
.
I think that there are a coupleof reasons for statements like
this.
I've heard it describedspecifically about Medvedev is
that he's kind of a he's used totest some of the more
ridiculous sounding and he'sused to test some of the more
ridiculous sounding policy ideasthat come out of the Kremlin or
that are circulating in thehalls of the Kremlin, and he's
(35:50):
someone that can push theseideas just to see what kind of
reaction they get from thepublic, from international
audiences.
So I think there's an elementof that.
But I also think there's adeterrent element.
(36:25):
It is posturing to show, hey,we do take this seriously,
russia has the capability toclose the Swahili gap in the
near term, question of whetheror not they can retain that
territory in the face of a NATOresponse.
So it's deterrent in that wayand it shows a degree of
capability or menace, I think.
And then the other piece is itcommunicates to a domestic
audience.
I think that the Russian, youknow Vladimir Putin's base wants
to see a strong Russia, andstatements like those support
(36:47):
that image of the Russian stateand of themselves.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
So just to follow up and finish, really, you say that
they could probably take theSwahili gap and then it would
take NATO some time to respond,and whether they could hold it
or not, whetherussians couldhold it or not, is a question.
I mean, this has been talkedabout for years.
It's a very likely scenario.
Why has, why has nato not builta better defense there so that
(37:19):
there's no way that the Russianswould even attempt it?
I mean, it's almost likethere's an invitation by lack of
NATO muscle forward deployed.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Well, I think that's the benefit of having a nuclear
alliance.
You don't need to rely on thesame degree of forward manpoweri
Gap.
But it does inform NATO'sdisposition and its policy of
(38:09):
defense.
Nato doesn't expect to defeatan initial Russian incursion
into NATO territory.
It's not realistic.
Look at the Baltic states.
They expect to delay it,disrupt it and then have the
(38:30):
logistics capacity and base inorder to receive and move onward
material manpower in order tocounterattack and reclaim that
territory.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Joseph, chelsea, joseph, good to talk to you
again.
I really appreciate it and I'veasked you to speculate on a lot
of stuff and it's hard, butthat's kind of the lay of the
land right now.
With Russia, it's hard to knowwhere they're heading and what
they intend to do and I guesseverybody has to sit back and
kind of anticipate the what ifsand I appreciate you
entertaining some of that.
Yeah, sure, happy to do it.
And that's our backstory onRussia and the ISIS-K terror
(39:14):
attack.
You can feel the war in Ukraineis about to get worse in the
coming months, mostly civilianareas rudely being targeted by
Russian missiles, and thefunding to enable Ukraine to
fight back is still stalled inWashington.
I'm Dana Lewis.
Thanks for listening toBackstory Backstory, by the way,
also available on my YouTubechannel.
(39:36):
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