Since the Russian military levelled Chechnya’s capital Grozny in response to the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, Putin has framed himself as a decisive leader against the threat of Islamist terrorism. This narrative undergirded Putin’s legacy of restoring order in Russia after the 1990s transition-era organised crime wave and separatist wars. Putin’s social compact, which traded personal freedom for security, kept him in power even as oil prices plunged, and an economic malaise ensued.
Over the past year, this cardinal feature of Putin’s legacy has disintegrated in spectacular fashion. Exactly twelve months ago today, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s ultranationalist legion occupied Rostov-on-Don and rapidly marched towards Moscow. The Kremlin decapitated this challenge by negotiating Prigozhin’s stand-down and almost certainly assassinating him. But the old threat of Islamist terrorism merely took its place.
The Islamic State- Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), which is headquartered in Afghanistan and Pakistan, carried out the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow that killed 145 people. Now terrorists from ISIS’s North Caucasus branch Wilayat Kavkaz have likely carried out the latest harrowing attacks in Dagestan.
Why has the Ukraine War smashed the illusion of security in Russia?
Putin’s thirst for totalitarian control has distracted the FSB from its counter-terrorism responsibilities and reduced its efficiency as a security organ. As Russian troops rolled into Ukraine in February 2022, the FSB became preoccupied with running “filtration camps” to test the loyalties of Ukrainians in the occupied territories. After Russia’s humiliating defeats in Kharkiv and Kherson in late 2022, Putin tasked the FSB with intensified crackdowns on foreign intelligence agencies and traitors.
To prove the point, a vocal minority of Russians decried the FSB’s redirection of focus. After the Crocus City attack, Russian journalist Kirill Martynov scathingly criticised the FSB for focusing on “LGBT extremists” and dismissing warnings from Western intelligence agencies that an attack was imminent. Russian opposition activist Ivan Zhdanov claimed that the FSB’s obsession with surveilling Russians and punishing anti-war dissidents destroyed its effectiveness. The Russian state media, naturally, deflected from these criticisms by redirecting public anger towards Ukraine. This allowed the FSB leadership to weather the storm of its repeated intelligence failures and remain intact.
The FSB’s abdication of responsibility has coincided with the worsening of grievances in Russia’s under-privileged ethnic minority regions. Dagestan is one of the worst victims of the Ukraine War’s unequal burdens. By early May 2022, Dagestan had the highest casualty rate of any Russian region. Independent investigations revealed that at least 130 Dagestanis had perished. By April 2023, that figure had risen to at least 806 and the families of Dagestani men who died in the field struggled to secure compensation from the Kremlin.
Dagestan’s creation of the Caspi “volunteer battalion,” which mobilised men over the age of 40, ensures that conscription rates vastly outstrip those in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These steep casualty rates have coincided with a worsening economic crisis in Dagestan. Due to the dominance of oligarchic clans, 70 per cent of Dagestan’s budget comes from Russian federal subsidies. This is the highest figure of any Russian region.
While the Dagestani authorities claim that fighting in Ukraine is good for Russia’s future, many desperate young men do not agree. In a viral September 2022 video, one Dagestani man resisting mobilisation declared “We don’t even have a present. What future are you talking about?” As repression silenced the 2,000-strong legion of anti-mobilisation protesters in Dagestan, the appeal of political violence, radicalisation, and terrorism, has grown.
After the latest terrorist attacks, introspection is the appropriate response for the Kremlin. In Putin’s Russia, however, introspection is sadly punishable by prison and death. Deflection reigns supreme. But for how much longer?
Samuel Ramani is an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations