New ‘Counter-Terrorism Operation’ in Ingushetia Highlights Failure of Russian Siloviki to Do Their Jobs, Cherkasov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 7 – The problems arising from an armed underground in the North Caucasus have never gone away, although they have receded in importance in recent years, Aleksandr Cherkasov says. But instead of focusing on the underground and doing their proper job, the Russian siloviki have ignored that challenge and focus on easier and safer targets.

            The security forces “have long been engaged in ‘comfortable and safe’ ‘terrorist’ cases for them, such as arrested people for questionable money transfers abroad, and have “not carried out real counter-terrorism work,” the Memorial Human Rights Center expert says (t.me/polniypc/4170 and fortanga.org/2023/04/cherkasov-siloviki-pokazali-proval-v-kontrterroristicheskoj-rabote/).

            As a result, Cherkasov continues, when the underground does emerge and engage in violence, the Russian siloviki are at a loss as far as what to do and engage in actions that are at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive, highlighting Russian weakness and the strength of resistance to Moscow and its local minions.

            All this is very much on public view in the latest declaration of a counter-terrorism operation in Ingushetia and even more in the way that the siloviki have flailed about, highlighting their past failures to do real work and the uselessness of acting the way they have (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/ingushetia-descends-into-violence-magas.html).

            These siloviki failures are on view not only among the people of Ingushetia and the North Caucasus but in Russia as a whole and may very well serve as an indication that the supposed all-powerful nature of the siloviki is far less true than Moscow has advertised and that many have accepted.

            If that occurs, then this counter-terrorism operation instead of ending violent resistance in one place may have the effect of sparking more violent resistance not only there but elsewhere as people conclude that the authorities really are not as effective as many have believed them to be. And that could make Ingushetia a harbinger of developments across Russia.