Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 29 – Russian security
agencies frequently report that they have prevented terrorist actions by
arresting or killing those who were planning them, but a Novaya gazeta
investigation concludes that Russians have no way of assessing the accuracy of
such claims because the agencies involved provide little or no follow-on
information.
Aleksandr Taranova of the Moscow
paper says she and her colleagues monitored reports about blocked terrorist actions
in Russia between November 2015 and November 2017. During that period, the FSB, Interior
Ministry, and other government agencies reported nearly 6,000 such cases but
provided information about the terrorists in only 30 cases (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2018/04/27/76328-upolnomocheny-promolchat).
The FSB, for
example, made 3505 declarations to the media about blocking terrorist acts; but
there is information available about only 13 sentences and 14 arrests, the
journalist says. (In her article, she documents what is known about this
limited number of cases, although that is not her main concern.)
The absence of such publicly
available information about those involved makes it “impossible to assess the
extent of the threat and the effectiveness of the special services” and to
distinguish from real cases as opposed to those based on “fabricated accusations.”
And that in turn has consequences for
Russian society.
Such reports add to fears and
aggressiveness in Russian society that may or may not be justified, Taranova
says. This implication of her article is
that the security services may very well be claiming that they have blocked
terrorist attacks when there have not been any to block and that therefore
their reports are more political than factual.
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