The Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow on 22 March was one of the largest terrorist attacks the country has seen in recent memory. Within minutes a death toll of 40 had been announced, with over 100 more injured. Those numbers have now risen considerably – 140 dead, and at least 300 injured. This tips the death toll over that of the 2002 Moscow theatre hostage crisis.
This confirms the deadliness and reactionary nature of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP, or ISIS-K), an ultra-Islamist rival to the Taliban, which claimed responsibility. The attackers themselves appear to have been from Tajikistan, which borders ISKP’s native Afghanistan.
The week following the attack was replete with speculation and reaction diluting or denying ISKP's responsibility via evasive conspiracy theories. Vladimir Putin’s response was, unsurprisingly, to link the attacks immediately to Ukraine, claiming that the terrorists had been recruited through the Ukrainian embassy in Tajikistan, and that upon fleeing the scene of the shooting they had headed “in the direction of Ukraine”.
A number of theories have spread online, through various media outlets and from parts of the left. The first is that the attacks were organised by none other than Putin himself, a "false flag" to justify ramping up the war in Ukraine. That is not outside the realm of possibility (the Russian state’s involvement in the 1999 apartment bombings that kick-started the Second Chechen War has still never been conclusively ruled out), but there is no firm evidence of Russian state involvement. Putin could also have chosen a far easier narrative to shoehorn the Ukrainians into, rather than the extremely far-fetched claims about embassies that he is currently making (why not, for example, stage a shooting done by Ukrainians themselves?)
Behind several of these claims is an underlying question: why would ISIS want to attack Russia? This can be easily answered by anyone who has followed the region’s politics for more than a couple of months. ISIS sees Russia as its primary enemy, or as providing support to its primary enemies, in several ongoing and recent conflicts, perhaps most notably Syria. In Afghanistan, where ISKP are the largest opposition group to the ruling Taliban, their leadership has made repeated attacks on Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada for cosying up too much to Russia.
Meanwhile, several suspects have been arrested and subject to brutal torture by members of the neofascist militia Rusich. Unlike other cases of prisoner torture, these arrestees were filmed, their brutal extrajudicial punishment broadcast across Telegram channels for the world to see. Just in case anybody thought the videos were faked, the suspects then appeared at trial covered in cuts, bruises and bandages, some having to be wheeled in to the courtroom barely conscious.
It is not just suspected terrorists who will see the brunt of this violence. Tajiks were already one of the most persecuted ethnic groups in Russian society, and this provocation will add fuel to the fire. Police violence, deportations and street harassment will be the tip of the iceberg for one of Russia’s most policed communities.
As socialist former state deputy Mikhail Lobanov has highlighted, this is also about foreign policy: the response to the attacks from the Russian state will be to scare Russian society into submission before a second wave of mobilisation for the war in Ukraine. With scant evidence already waved through as fact, Ukraine will be seen as "responsible" for the attack on Crocus City Hall, and the punishment will be yet another uptick in the carnage of the last two years.