Russia suffers its deadliest terrorist attack in two decades after ignoring a warning from U.S. intelligence – a warning that Vladimir Putin dismissed at the time as “blackmail.”
And despite ISIS-K claiming responsibility for the attack that killed more than 140 people at a concert venue near Moscow, Putin blamed Ukraine – and Russian law-enforcement, security services, and media followed suit, pointing the finger at Kyiv without a shred of evidence.
Large scale terrorist attacks in Russia have often been leveraged by the Kremlin for political goals. On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Jeff Mankoff, a Distinguished Research Fellow at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and author of the book Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security, about what the Kremlin’s reaction reveals and portends. (Jeff Mankoff’s views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of NDU or the U.S. Department of Defense.)
SHOW NOTES
Timothy Snyder’s Substack article, “Putin’s Paranoia,” which was referenced in the podcast, can be accessed here.
Jeff Mankoff’s published works can be accessed here and here. His book, Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security, can be purchased here.
Brian Whitmore’s recent article, “In Russia, Mafiaism is the New Communism,” published in The Bulwark, can be accessed here. His article, “Russia’s Strategy of Capture,” published in The National Interest, can be accessed here.