OTOH, how long it’s taking for the Kremlin to issue any response does suggest that they were taken by surprise. If they had planned this, they’d presumably have at least some preliminary statement about how they’re investigating it (setting things up neatly for their scripted conclusion).
It took long time to respond to beginning of war. And that wasn't even Friday evening.
I think it took them a long time to respond to the war because they cocked it up so badly. They were probably expecting to announce that they had taken Kyiv, and then didn't know what to do when they couldn't. Looks the same here. They may have been able to prevent this if they listened to the US intel. That may not be a good look for Putin back home.
They always take a pause. Can’t control the narrative in the initial chaos.
In our local news ISIS has claimed responsiblity for the attack. Who knows what really happened, but it's a bit of a stretch, even for Russian news, to blame Ukraine for that as media globally has this information. Not that it will stop them from at least trying to blame Ukraine, but this kind of freamongering and speculation is a bit too soon to happen.
It might be ISIS, it might be Russians themselves, it might be Ukraine or their associates, who knows. The fact is that the terrorist strike happened, but bluntly stating that it was Putin himself only a hour or two after the news was published doesn't help anyone. What matters is reaction to this in upcoming few days. Before that it's better to just follow how the whole thing goes instead of blatantly accusing anyone without any proof.
it might be Ukraine or their associates
Gotta stop you right there. Ukraine orchestrating this attack is not in the realm of possibility.
I agree with your other points, but given Putin's track record with things like this I think it's absolutely relevant to mention the very real likelihood that this was orchestrated by Russia and will be used to escalate. Of course you are right that time will tell. But I for one appreciate the reminder of Putin's history in this regard and to be on guard for how this awful event and the tragic lost lives of innocent victims will be used by the Putin regime for his own nefarious purposes.
Strictly technically speaking, Ukraine could have done that, but I don't believe it either. FSB has already published a statement claiming terrorists had connections in Ukraine, as expected, but for FSB propaganda it's well enough if they even have some distant relative in Ukraine. It's not impossible that some individual in Ukraine would have given weapons for these guys, but ak47's are common enough all around and isis have their own supplies, so there's no need to travel that far to find weapons.
My point was that immediately pointing fingers to someone without any evidence doesn't do any good. Russia will of course at least try to spin this to suit their own purposes, but it doesn't mean that they orchestrated the attack. There's been warnings from the USA and other countries about possibility of terrorist attack in Russia for weeks, so it's a possibility that isis just decided that now it's a good time to hurt Russia because of their actions in Afganistan (or some other reasoning). Whatever the truth might be terrorism is terrorism and the whole thing has been condemned globally, myself included.
Either way this doesn't have immediate impact on Ukraine or war front. Russia maybe has now a bit more leverage for their propaganda, so mobilization of new troops might be a bit easier, but that's about it. Regardless of how Russians react to this, Europe has to continue and increase the support given to Ukraine as it's been clear for a while that Russia will start massive attacks no matter what and currently I'm afraid that Ukraine doesn't have the manpower to stop that. Should Ukraine lose this war it would be catastrophic to the rest of the Europe and even globally, possibly ending up in a full blown war between nato and Russia.
My heart goes out to all the victims of this horrible attack.
What is so important to bear in mind here: Russia's government has "increased security" over all these years because of "foreign threats" and similar excuses. It is now painfully obvious that nothing got safer, maybe even on the contrary, and in the name of security, basic rights have been stripped away from people one by one. While the "national security" is busy searching social media for color coded messages that read against the war between the lines.
@volvoxvsmarla @IsoKiero my heart goes out to the inumerable number of victims of Russia's horrible attacks in Ukraine. And in Syria....
Don't forget russian citizens support these atrocities.
Statistically speaking, it can't be all Russian citizens. Overgeneralizations aren't great.
Adding to that, statistically speaking, not all Russians support Putin, and the span between great support and great resistance is very wide. Saying that all Russian citizens support Putin's atrocities is as wrong as saying all Russians are against the war.
Exactly, this Roger guy is trying to stoke the hate. It's lame.
You know that you can feel sympathy for more than one group of victims, right?
@volvoxvsmarla to be honest, I have a very hard time feeling pity for russians.
Well, must be a comfortable life being a colorblind racist
Don't Google 1999 apartment bombings in Russia.
The FSB guys who were found with bombs definitely were doing nothing bad, and they actually had no bombs only bags with sugar (their literal explanation for that situation).
Bad luck that journalists investigating that case died for some reason.
Anyway, Putin would never kill his own citizens to gain more power! It's just crazy conspiracy theories, like with that apartment bombings before Russia invaded Chechnya!
[Source: Wikipedia article about that]
He's done it before. Surprised he didn't do it before the election though.
The elections was already rigged. If you need a false flag to win your already rigged election in a dictatorship, then you are really bad at being a dictator.
And Nixon was going to win the election in a landslide, there was no need at all to break into the Watergate Hotel.
Still did it though because he was a paranoid piss baby
While all that may be true, this isn't Putin's first reelection. And he already dealt with Navalny, so the point was already made. I'm not saying he's subtle, but he has a lot of experience on this front, and I don't think he would waste the effort for the election when he has a war that needs to be supported.
I personally think this was done by IS but Putin isn't one to not take advantage of a disaster for his personal gain, even if he didn't orchestrate it.
I doubt it as Russia gains nothing from it. Putin doesn't need to justify mobilization.
Also, IS claimed responsibility
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I don't doubt that a tyrant could pay off terrorist to perform an act of terrorism and put them in the spotlight. Both sides would "win".
I think this is probably conspiracy bullshit, however.
My cat does this all the time. Tries to distract me pretending that her own foot is attacking her. But I know better and that's not gonna get her any extra food today.
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