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Opinion
April 7, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 20
campaign, then the security agencies will try and take it down, fast and hard. In that case, we can expect lots of arrests – the basic philosophy is that it’s fine to detain nine innocents so long as you net one militant – as well as a ramping up
of document checks and similar surveillance of anyone looking even vaguely as if they may hail from Central Asia or the Caucasus. That this tends largely to panic Russians and alienate everyone else (and generate lucrative new extortion opportunities for cops) is beside the point.
Secondly, does tragedy become opportunity for the Kremlin? The detailed and balanced initial media coverage is encouraging. Hopefully, this reflects lessons learned from earlier attacks: that this is the best antidote to panic, rumour, and conspiracy theory. Nonetheless, from within the commentariat and political hitmen, already there have been some shabby, sideways attempts somehow to link Navalny and the protests with the blast. Will the security threat be mobilised as a pretext to ban demonstrations (in the interests
of public safety, of course), or more broadly as a reason to say “now is not the time for division”?
Ultimately, one attack is a tragedy but for everyone whose personal circle has not been affected by it, a meaningless one. Outside the North Caucasus, this is a relatively secure country. The Russian security apparatus, in its own bare-knuckled
way, is pretty effective. Nonetheless, as past and present experiences in other parts of the world have amply demonstrated, it is impossible to completely prevent attacks getting through. The challenge for the Kremlin is to nurture public resilience to cope with these isolated atrocities, and to avoid the temptation to use them for sordid political advantage.
Mark Galeotti is a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations Prague, a visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the director of Mayak Intelligence. He blogs at In Moscow’s Shadows and tweets as @MarkGaleotti.