As War in Ukraine Continues, Moscow Increasingly Talking about Spread of 'Banditry' in Russia Itself

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 10 – In the last few weeks, ever more Russian officials and media outlets have begun to speak not about individual terrorist actions inside the Russian Federation but about the more serious emergence of armed bands committed to fighting the authorities, language that recalls the one used by the Stalin regime against its opponents.
    For examples of this, see kp.ru/daily/27671/5022572/, rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/675813329a7947a8947e7e86, forbes.ru/society/526841-nak-soobsil-o-predotvrasenii-v-2024-godu-v-rossii-190-teraktov and oficery.ru/2024/12/10/nak-kievskij-rezhim-aktivno-ispolzuet-arsenal-nato-dlya-teraktov-v-rossii/.
    According to one observer, such discussions suggest that “the state is now officially recognizeing that an armed struggle is going on in Russia against the ruling regime,” the result of the fact that “the powers that be have not left their opponents with any other means save for armed force” (vkrizis.info/bezopasnost/renessans-bandpovstanchestva/).
    That overstates the situation, but it is certainly noteworthy that what Russian officials classified as hooliganism and more recently as terrorism is now being called banditry, a change that some who engage in such actions and those who support them are likely to see as a sign that the authorities are frightened and that the authorities will see as the occasion for more repression.
    After all, both the one side and the other have precedents in Russian history to look back on, most prominently the banditry that was a regular feature of Soviet life in the 1920s and early 1930s and in the western borderlands after the end of World War II. And thus the appearance of the word “banditry” in Russian outlets is yet another sign of the deteriorating situation there.