Russia’s Vaunted Security Services Look ‘Powerless’ Against Telephone Terrorists, Gudkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 6 – As telephoned bomb threats continue to empty buildings in Moscow, Russia’s security services which have always been praised to the skies by Vladimir Putin and his regime look “powerless” to do anything effective against such threats, provoking both fear and anger among many Russians, opposition politician Gennady Gudkov says. 

For almost a year, he writes, Russia has been suffering from this new plague, and the “all-powerful” security services have proved “powerless” to do anything about either preventing such outrages or bringing to justice those responsible. That makes the focus of the siloviki on Internet messages especially outrageous (echo.msk.ru/blog/gudkov/2365741-echo/).

What he and other Russians want to hear is that the security services on which the country is spending “trillions” of the taxes Russians pay has been able to stop these things or at the very least track down the guilty.  But that hasn’t happened. Instead, the siloviki get rewards and praise for finding “extremism” online.

They obviously can’t find it in the real world – raising questions about why they exist and what good they are for.