‘A Pseudo-Orthodox ISIS’ has Emerged in Russia, Rabinovich Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 4 – Ramzan Kadyrov’s demonstration of his independent power has attracted more attention, but the emergence in the last week of “a pseudo-Orthodox ISIS” in Russia, one ready to engage in terrorist activities against those it doesn’t approve of, may prove to be a far more serious danger.

            The Moscow commentator says that as yet, “it is unknown who is its creator but we all know the name of the person who has inspired it” – Duma deputy Natalya Poklonskaya (gordonua.com/blogs/rabinovich/v-rossii-voznik-psevdo-pravoslavnyy-igil-neizvestno-kto-ego-sozdatel-no-my-vse-znaem-imena-vdohnoviteley-205798.html).

            Rabinovich points to what can only be called terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg on August 31 and in Yekaterinburg on September 4 against those involved in the production and distribution of “Mathilda,” a film about the last tsar and his mistress that has sparked outrage among and now violence on the part of some Russians.

            Poklonskaya has led the charge against this film, but she has had the assistance of many others including Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the former head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for church-society relations. Indeed, the commentator says, one can call “Poklonskay and Chaplin the public faces of this new extremist and terrorist organization.”

            “According to the Constitution and Criminal Code,” Rabinovich continues, “Natalya Poklonskaya and her supporters should not be sitting in the Duma but on the bench of those accused.” They should be there rather than those like Sentsov, Navalny and Serebrennnikov that the regime has put there.

            It is quite obvious, he says, that “the pseudo-Orthodox ISIS is not an end in itself. Putin and his organized criminal group invented the Orthodox ISIS for us in order to frighten and at the same time change the agenda.” After all, Russians now talk about these terrorist incidents “almost forgetting” about everything else Putin has been doing. 

            This “pseudo-Orthodox ISIS” must be opposed not only because of its own threat to society but also because it is clearly a tool, albeit a double-edged one, of Putin’s organized criminal group.  What makes this so urgent is that it is not impossible that the Kremlin leader may lose control of this monster he has created just as with Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov.

            But one thing is sure: if the Putin organized criminal group is ousted, this domestic ISIS will disappear “not the next day but on the very same one,” Rabinovich says.