Monday’s explosion in a St. Petersburg metro car, which killed at least 14 people and left dozens injured, was described by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as an act of terror. However, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Russian President Vladimir Putin himself said it is “too early” to determine the cause. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder and Bennett Seftel spoke with Steve Hall – a former CIA agent, Russia expert, and The Cipher Brief contributor – to get his take on the blast.
The Cipher Brief: Given the recent anti-corruption protests in Russia and the country’s involvement in Syria, how do you read the situation of Monday’s bombing in the Russian subway?
Steve Hall: It’s going to be interesting to see where it all traces back to. If I were a betting man, most terrorist attacks in Russia lead back to the Caucuses, specifically to Chechnya and to Dagestan.
There has been a very reasonable analysis that given the increased role that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia have been playing in Syria by supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and also conducting attacks of their own, they have probably engendered a lot of anger on the part of jihadists, some of whom have traveled from Russia to Syria to fight and who may have returned to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia. It makes sense to me.
TCB: What is the likelihood that this incident could be Kremlin-orchestrated?
SH: I’m a “dark-sider” with regards to Putin and the Russian intelligence services, but even that is a little dark for me, although I do think that Putin has orchestrated terrorist attacks in the past. But I would be surprised if this was one of them. It’s much more likely that there is connectivity to other places such as Syria or Chechnya. There is certainly enough hatred going around in Chechnya to be responsible for this.
TCB: What could Putin’s next move be? Will he wait to classify this as a terrorist attack?
SH: I don’t think so. In fact, there have already been Russian officials who have said it bears all the characteristics of a terrorist attack. But whether Putin comes out and labels it whatever he is going to label it, I would be surprised if he didn’t label a terrorist attack.
But there should be no doubt, Putin has always been very firm and very strong with regards to how he deals with terrorists and terrorism, and it is likely that he is going to come down as hard as he can using the FSB [Russia’s federal security service] and other law enforcement mechanisms. He is going to come down hard because he always has.
TCB: Can you talk a little bit about Russia’s counterterrorism strategy, particularly in light of the Trump Administration expressing a desire to form closer counterterrorism cooperation with Russia?
SH: You guys are the first ones to ask that critical question!
The Russians do counterterrorism very differently than we do on a couple of different levels. Not that they aren’t good at it – they’re pretty good at it – but they just do it differently. The first difference that we have with the Russians is one of fundamental values. The Russians have no problems going in and not only killing a terrorist, but taking out his family, the entire house, or the entire village the terrorist is from simply because collateral damage for them is not a big deal. And it’s not just Putin; most Russians support that.
Here in the West and the U.S., we have a different approach where we are concerned about human rights and a lot of different things that the Russians may not be. The Russians do things differently. There is a lot less regard for things like human rights and that’s not just Putin; the Russian populous supports that kind of approach. That’s one big difference.
The second area that is difficult when it comes to sharing on counterterrorism issues is that with the Russians, you have to be really careful – even though it seems like an obvious area for cooperation – because the Russians harbor no problems with using the intelligence that is shared with them in ways that we would never use it. This alludes back to the other issue with regard to Western values and human rights.
But they also will manipulate it politically. They will manipulate really anything politically to the political benefit of Russia. That’s something that we would really never do in the U.S. and the West with counterterrorism intelligence. The Russians are very good, very brutal, about how they prosecute counterterrorism operations, but sharing intelligence and cooperating with them is very difficult from a Western intelligence perspective.
TCB: Could this attack be ISIS-related?
SH: You’ve probably already seen the theories out there about Russia and the returnees from Syria – guys volunteering from the Caucuses and going over to Syria, and then returning at the behest of ISIS.
One thing that I’ve researched is when the last time there was an ISIS-associated attack in Russia. There was an attack on some policemen outside of Moscow last August, and the guys who did it were ironically both Chechens, so the roads go back to Chechnya. Both of them pledged allegiance to ISIS before they went off and tried to stab these police officers. That was really the only other ISIS-related incident that I could find.
