In our latest column we discussed how Russia is becoming a “war economy” under the influence of its “czar,” the newly re-elected president Vladimir Putin. We also said that the recent terrorist attacks in Moscow will accelerate this process. This week, we want to discuss in detail this key link between these two events and other European countries’ reaction to them.
On March 22nd, a group of gunmen perpetrated an attack at the Crocus City Hall theatre, in the outskirts of Moscow, where at least 139 people were killed. This episode resembles a similar attack perpetrated in Paris in November 2015, at the Bataclan music venue. The massacre was claimed by a cell of ISIS-K, a segment of the wider ISIS/ISIL organisation, which we discussed in our recent article on Iran and its neighbours. This group draws some inspiration from the revanchist sentiment prevailing in the South-Western region of Russia, deriving from the wars that Putin carried out in the early 2000s against the separatist groups in Chechnya.
Every nation subject to similar attack would naturally increase its domestic security defenses (as happened in the US post-9/11 and in France during the Hollande presidency), which in itself would contribute to the re-militarisation of that country, which is already underway given the ongoing war in Ukraine.
For most leaders, this would be enough, but not for Putin. While the paternity of the attacks was clear –the arrested gunmen were all from Tajikistan, and ISIS-K was vary vocal in claiming the attack – Putin wanted to make sure to blame Ukraine and its Western allies, and so he and his “leadership team” openly said that the attack was orchestrated by the US and British secret services in collaboration with Ukraine.
Western countries dismissed the ludicrous claim, but also fear that Putin is looking for pretexts to launch an offensive, possibly on NATO countries. Press reports suggest that Biden fears for a possible attack on one of the Baltic countries, such as Lithuania, which is one of the countries bordering on Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave, near Danzig. As a result, the leaders of Estonia and Latvia, the two other Baltic countries and former Soviet Union republics, said that national military conscription should be re-instated in Europe.
This is coming at a time when France, with its president Macron, is being very vocal about the necessity of NATO deploying its soldiers in Ukraine while also leaving some diplomatic channels with Putin open. And when the long-waited F-16 fighter jets are being cautiously given to Ukraine, starting with the first six planes (out of 45 approved), which are to be delivered in coming weeks. This is also coming at a time when the EU is discussing the issuance of euro-bonds to finance a joint defence budget.
It seems that the rise of a common “enemy at the gates” is finally pushing the European countries to start acting as a unified political entity. Paradoxically, after having already achieved the unintended consequence of revitalising NATO and increasing its membership to include historically neutral, neighbouring countries such as Sweden and Finland, Russsia may now also be unifying Europe around a joint cause, instead of destroying it from within with the usual tactics of “divide and conquer.”
