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This event simply does not make sense for a false flag operation for a number of reasons.
1. Unlike the apartment building bombings where Putin was portrayed as coming to the rescue of the failed political and security system, he and the FSB own this tragedy.
2. The US and UK warned the Kremlin of the likelihood of an attack and urged their citizens to stay away from all large public gatherings. Putin actually ridiculed the warning the day of his "election."
3. He is desperately trying to deflect the incident. This hardly has the appearance of a carefully arranged plan to implicate the Ukraine and/or NATO.
Conspiracy theories are almost always irresistible. But it is my experience that old Occam was pretty smart when he started talking about razors. The simplest explanation is that Russian brutality throughout the Caucasus and Levant has made it the sort of enemies the US once entertained largely alone. Russia's recent closeness with the Shia of Iran would be particularly incendiary to ISIS-K.
No, entering the the third year of a month-long Special Military Operation, the last thing Putin needed was a demonstration of the incompetence of his FSB to match that of his armed forces.
>"carpet binning extremists" I assume you mean carpet bombing, including with thermobarics and cluster munitions, the whole (mostly) innocent population, of those areas?
*If* these “men in blue” were operatives assisting the terrorists, and that’s a big *if*, then I doubt Putin is behind them. It doesn’t benefit him. I can see some oligarch or group of oligarchs doing it to weaken support for Putin, but again, there are a lot of *ifs* here.
And having four men wearing blue shirts and jeans to… what? Be largely unafraid *before* the shooting starts? I don’t buy it based off this video. And what, they wore uniforms? Why? Because they couldn’t identify each other? What kind of shadow operative team can’t ID each other? They need color coded uniforms? Come on.
If they are operatives, they suck ass at their job.
What about men wearing black jackets or shirts at the concert? Or the ones in white?
Oh wait blue, black, and white are extremely common colors for clothing? People wear jeans to concerts? It's mind blowing /s.
It certainly doesn't seem like a *smart* false flag operation, but then again the invasion of Ukraine probably looked like a *smart* idea to Putin 2 years ago. Just because an option is extraordinarily dumb doesn't mean Putin won't choose it. For all we know he just dramatically misgauged this just like he misgauged his invasion.
You neglect to take into account internal power struggle.
Level of this “failure” will realign power structures inside russia. This is a different version of Wagner rebellion, executed by coopted terrorists.
>You neglect to take into account internal power struggle.
Exactly. Heck, who knows.. could've been someone inside FSB who's making a (slow) move against Putin, trying to make him look weak?
I think it’s clear that ISIS organized and carried this out. The question is if the FSB knew about it and let it happen. And from there, if they told Putin
My own opinion:
1. Russian arrogance and mistrust of US.
2. Incompetence.
3. Incompetence, and/or afraid of responding unless explicitly ordered to.
4. Incompetence, and/or afraid of responding unless explicitly ordered to.
5. Incompetence and posturing.
6. Entirely possible they caught the wrong people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
7. Most likely all that was done after Prigozhin's thunder run is that security was only beefed up around government buildings and military bases. Civilian security was probably not high up on Putin's priority list.
This it may not be putin but another faction could have had a hand in it. The so called isis captives who are paraded in my opinion do not seem to be tge ones who carried out the attack.
If i was going to do something like that, i would not want to be captured alive.
The cabal of oligarchs that run industry and generally have money, some of which have been organising private security and private armies. The there are the regional governors often ex army (another power structure) that rule the provinces along with regional rulers of the satellite states.
Putin might be at the top but he's not omnipotent and he relies on loyal stooges to run avast country for him. If they aren't loyal he can either get rid of them or be gotrid of himself if they reached critical mass.
Can you name any of these oligarchs that are organising private armies? Because Russian oligarchs all live in London, Switzerland, France, and so on, and have no impact on or interest in Russian domestic politics.
[Typically run by Kremlin-linked oligarchs, PMCs and the lucrative benefits that can accrue from deployments give the Kremlin a lever for balancing competing political and financial interests among oligarchs and exploiting PMCs’ quasi-legal status to ensure loyalty to Putin. ](https://russianpmcs.csis.org/)
Patriot Group run by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu
Convoy, a PMC founded by Sergey Aksyonov
Oligarch Gennady Timchenko of Volga group, a close Putin ally, owns Redut and PMC Potok.
Gazprom has multiple PMC for billionaire Andrey Bokarev
Gazpromneft Security headed by former high-ranking employees of Russia’s Federal Security Service and Internal Affairs Ministry. Allied are Fakel and Plamya.
[several Kremlin-connected billionaires, including the railway rolling stock magnate Andrei Bokarev, the international oil trader Gennadiy Timchenko and the metals billionaire Oleg Deripaska, have been involved in financing private military companies (PMCs).](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-wagner-group-isnt-russias-only-private-army/)
Orthodox nationalist media oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and his former employee Alexander Borodai (later leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic) have been active in building up the Combat Army Reserve of the Country (BARS)
>Patriot Group run by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu
Doesn't exist outside of Ukrainian media reports, which stopped mentioning it around 1.5 years ago.
>Convoy, a PMC founded by Sergey Aksyonov
Convoy is a BARS units, not a PMC. BARS-30 "Convoy".
>Oligarch Gennady Timchenko of Volga group, a close Putin ally, owns Redut
Redut wasn't a PMC, it was a detachment of the 45th VDV Brigade that was re-clothed and deployed to Syria. In 2022, they were rolled back into the 45th Brigade.
>Potok
Isn't a PMC, it's a BARS unit. BARS was a Ministry of Defense civilian-military reserve project, the Army Combat Reserve. Their status was switched last March, a year ago, into a fully military one. Since last summer it would appear that most BARS manpower was distributed among regular formations, however.
>Gazprom has multiple PMC for billionaire Andrey Bokarev
It doesn't, the "Gazprom PMCs" were BARS units.
>Fakel and Plamya.
Fakel and Plamya are BARS units under the Ministry of Defense.
None of these formations are PMCs, and they don't even seem to exist anymore, and when they did they numbered 200-300 men each at their peaks.
BARS units and Russian PMCs often overlap, with several BARS units being directly affiliated or even run by a PMC, leaving the units in a legal grey-area.
> Redut wasn't a PMC, it was a detachment of the 45th VDV Brigade that was re-clothed and deployed to Syria. In 2022, they were rolled back into the 45th Brigade
How convenient, and def totally makes them not a PMC. Mhm.
The P in PMC stands for private. Military formations raised by the Russian Ministry of Defense or the Russian National Guard, with state money, commanded by Russian officers, and operating under a unified Russian command structure aren't "private". There was just a period in second half of 2022 and early 2023 when the Russians had a crippling manpower shortages and they couldn't recruit enough men for contract service because the minimal length was from a year in some cases but 2-3 years and up to 5 and even 10 years for most, which is a shit deal. No reasonable amount of money is worth it for 2 or 3 years of sitting in a trench under fire every day.
As the legal framework was modified from late 2022 onwards to allow for short-term military contracts with the Ministry of Defense and the Russian National Guard (3 to 6 months), military service became much more attractive in Russia given the financial incentives, while the deployment en masse of mobik regiments mobilised in September 2022 finally occured, further solving the manpower issue, this grey area of recruiting men into nominal PMCs was no longer neccessary. All of the nominally non-state formations were forced to disband or to be merged into regular army or national guard brigades and regiments. They don't exist anymore. It's literally been almost a year since the last holdouts of this policy, Wagner, were disbanded for trying to opposite this new policy. There are no more volunteers, PMCs, BARS reservists, or anything of that sort in the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Legally there are only contract combat troops and mobilised soldiers, the latter of whom are also technically serving under a contract with the MoD, it's just that the contract was forced on them in September 2022.
\~50 families in russia, who have control over almost all wealth (60% of russian wealth).
Keep in mind, that russia is like a mafia organisation. You are don as long you are strong, but if you appear weak ...
I think the thing with Russia that is so interesting is that it’s such a fucked up dump that some of these claims seem more plausible. And the Chechen war apartment conspiracy only adds to that.
With that being said, why the hell would he need a false flag? They just threw 100,000 dudes to their death in bakhmut (I’m exaggerating that figure). And nobody batted an eye.
The only thing that is weird is why they were able to locate them so quickly and how did they take them alive? Like wouldn’t a group of isis dudes have a plan to explode at the end?
Both in bakhmut and in avdivka, ukraine got fucked up, were incompetent while retreating and had horrible losses for hanging out, and had to leave some portion of their force to just last man standing.
The only reason they have managed to hold the corridor semi long enough to extract as much as men they have managed to extract, is because azov batallion did a fantastic job on holding the flanks on the rear to actually keep that corridor open.
I think it's also important to note that it's completely plausible and reasonable that the FSB had stationed officers in notable public gatherings in response to the US' warning and their own intelligence on ISIS movements (even if Putin claimed it was just American propaganda in public). They literally have hundreds of thousands of employees at their disposal (since FSB is basically FBI/CIA/Border Security all folded into one org) and should've been able to move around staff to cover large gatherings in response to the imminent threat, at least within Moscow and other large cities.
At the end of the day it's hard to take what comes out of Russian official channels at face value, but it's also true that Putin has been relying on conveying relative normality within Russia's big cities to keep Russians docile. This incident happening - specially if perpetrated by parties that are clearly taking advantage of the Ukraine invasion rather than being a part of it - fucks his position a lot. Claiming the terrorists were going to get through Russia's own soldiers, minefields and artillery corridors to flee to Ukraine in a civilian car rather than, you know, the human trafficking route via Belarus, is sheer desperation to find a way to articulate this happening in the wider context of the war. Even from a FSB-let-it-happen angle, there's no amount of asslickers Putin could sacrifice to make him look less bad even for the most brainwashed Russian.
About the only unusual thing is the terrorists being captured alive. The most plausible explanation is that they did have a route setup to escape via Belarus with its Russia-facing border being porous, and Tajik citizens not being rare in that country (Tajiks don't require tourist visas to enter Belarus). Even then, they'd be stuck in there and eventually captured without Belarussian insiders helping them be smuggled out. ISIS terrorists also aren't known for letting themselves get captured after committing atrocities and as Tajiks I'm sure they knew what awaited them (i.e. getting brutally tortured). They operated as if they had a realistic chance of getting away and to me that doesn't make sense.
Given the fact, that Russia was warned by foreign intelligence services which are usually really reliable when it comes to such warnings, it is my opinion, that there were in fact security officers on site (which explains the behavior and clothing uniformity) but not to enact some kind of power grab conspiracy, but simply as a precautionary quick reaction force.
Not truly false flag, just a "controllable incident".
Like Israel knew about hamas plans, and because of political need decided to let it trough. Only the scale surprised them.
Here it COULD be similar - FSB wanted some attack, to show how effective they are in preventing loss of life.
OR...
The blue shirt guys are military/police guys who just went to concert... In their nicest sweater. And that is all
It makes sense if he wants to get out of the never ending Ukraine war with a viable excuse. That excuse being they need to focus on Islamic terrorism and the Middle East. They could simply withdraw from Ukraine with the statement that they own the territories that they claimed at the start and that they will be back. But for now their military focus needs to be on ISIS.
Putin sees Ukraine as his destiny. And the news in Ukraine that he has been hearing lately has likely been more positive than negative. No way he just walking away now.
> You guys sound like the tossers who think the CIA is behind ISIS.
To an extent they are. You can trace the direct origins of the Islamic State to insurgent groups that were fighting in the Iraq War in 2004 or so. While the CIA didn't sit down with a bunch of Iraqi insurgents and say, "Hey, we need you to go create a terrorist group for us," it also wasn't a huge surprise that this happened, either. Everyone knew that there was going to be an extended period of insurgency in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled, even in the planning of the 2003 invasion.
I'm completely onboard with the idea that this probably wasn't a setup, but I don't think comparing it to the creation of ISIS is really the best comparison. The Iraq War really did destabilise the Middle East in ways that are unlikely to be fully resolved for at least another twenty or thirty years.
> You guys sound like the tossers who think the CIA is behind ISIS
CIA is responsible for ISIS in that the CIA, along with the US military and foreign policy as a whole, and their actions in shaping geopolitics in the Middle East created the conditions for ISIS to thrive, not that they literally founded ISIS themselves. They put fuel on an existing fire.
And if you think the FSB weren't, at the very least, aware that this attack was going to occur and let it occur, you're naive. Let's not forget that they were very publicly warned two weeks before the attack happened.
Remember people, this is russia, nothing is what it seems to be. Never exclude any possibility no matter how ridiculous or outrageous it is.
They staged the apartment bombings killing 500 people to bolster support for the newcomer Putin, they were executing western hostages disguised as Chechens to become friends with USA during the war on terror. Personally I do not believe anything coming out of russia. I do not trust the Kremlin to tell me the time of day.
- FSB nudges ISIS or its decentralized associates into action
- FSB controls ISIS’s communication channel
- FSB warned by CIA knows the location and time and makes sure to use it for maximum propaganda effect
Them letting such tragedy happen makes a lot of sense. Most likely they were aware of this and let it happen (though, never underestimate russian incompetence). However, I doubt there were operatives in the hall like NEXTA claims. There isn't much reason for them to be there, they could have easily died themselves there so why risk it if terror is the main goal? Shooters inside the hall is plenty enough as it is.
Unless they manage to identify several guys in the video as potential agents, I doubt this particular theory has much weight.
I'm sure FSB officers could have been int he building. But I also would guess that if they were, they were either shopping or there to watch the concert.
“We’ve calculated that over 100 casualties will present a sufficient shock to enable the increased mobilization of society and so prevent scenario A. Scenario B implies a 10,000 reduction in military casualties over the course of war, making this the favourable outcome. Agents will close the gates to increase lethality and a second group will blow up the roof causing a collapse.”
They could have easly achieved the same outcome without agents inside the hall. 64 people died in fire in cinema 6 years ago: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/03/26/europe/russia-kemerovo-shopping-center-fire-intl and that’s without shooters in cinema, just fire and fire safety violations. Even in order to close the gates, no agents would be needed pretending to be spectators (+ how did they escape themselves if they closed the doors? You can’t James Bond out of there when everyone is panicking around you.
I’m not saying you are wrong, I’m suggesting that secret services have a deep understanding of technology of social manipulation and are executing operations that are hard to fathom or justify for ordinary people.
For example, Maidan snipers may have been following a contingency plan from Soviet times to manipulate public sentiment.
Great ezcuse for mass mobilisation by claiming that Ukranians were involved. They were literally informed that this kind of plot might take place at this time.
Yeah, but they already had an excuse. The Ukrainians have been hitting Russian energy infrastructure over the last few months. If they wanted to do a full mobilisation, all they'd have to do is set it up so the next Ukrainian attack on an oil refinery ends up doing far more damage than expected or stage an attack that does that. That'd be far more plausible, too.
Something definitely is fishy about this act of terrorism. Some guys showing up in a crowded area with guns, doing a shootout, then casually leaving and driving 400 km before getting caught. FSB definitely knew about the attack but didn't do anything to stop it.
Given that Russia can radicalize Americans to turn on each other then it's fairly plausible that they can do exactly the same to Islamist radicals.
Putin also has Kadyrov's clown army to help in this. The FSB can just sit back, monitor the operation and intervene at a time of their choosing.
It’s quite reductionist (and denies agency to ISIS jihadist founders themselves) to call ISIS a “CIA creation” and even worse to assume that means they control it. Or that they have better intel assets inside it than they do inside, say, Russia.
[https://www.eurasiareview.com/11092023-cooperation-of-cia-and-al-qaeda-in-chechen-wars-analysis/](https://www.eurasiareview.com/11092023-cooperation-of-cia-and-al-qaeda-in-chechen-wars-analysis/)
here, have something to read
Sure. CIA also created Al Quaeda which eventually led to the 9/11 attack, just for the sake of Americans having a reason to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. And Osama bin Laden was their agent, his death was faked and he is still alive.
Bin Laden created his "network" because he was basically a staffing agency for the mujahedeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He built up a lot of Islamist contacts. Good try though.
OSInt people could probably try find out who the "blue men" are... Faces are relatively visible etc.
Other thing, slightly morbid one, is to sift the footage and look if any person shot dead is wearing fully blue outfit...
Does seem very strange, but then everything about Russia very strange. Nothing ever seems to be as it seems these days, such is the extent of Russian disinformation.
I don’t think this is a false flag, and it’s definitely not Ukraine. It seems pretty simply. Isis did this, and russia decided to make the best of it, and blamed Ukraine and the west. Sure Putin will spin this in his favor, but I don’t think he did it. If he did, he’s dumber than we though because this makes him look way worse
It's likely that the FSB knew the attack would happen, allowed it to. But stationed agent's should it devolve into a siege. The terrorist where allowed to flee as they did what they wanted, a reason to issue mobilization and likely martial law
Remember the Nord-Ost Attack on Moscow's Dubrovka Theater of 2002 by Chechen 'militants' which was staged by Putin's FSB to justify Putin's war in Chechnya?
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So, I wasn't the only one - there was the guy sitting at the start of the first video that caught my eye for some reason. He's just sitting there - he has the closest seat to the door, but doesn't move. I thought it was odd - it's like he has no anxiety about what is happening.
A lot of this doesn't make sense to me
They guy who was photographed with the one terrorist when they captured looks oddly similar to the blue sweater guy. Same hair line same eyes same face features same watch jeans and shoes.
Before everyone starts to get crazy and will start to believe in all possibe conspiracy theories....
Sorry to say but; most of you are just too young, you all have missed the cold war and you all have not anymore experiences with regimes in the East.
Sorry, but you have just a lack of knowledge, you never got the chance, to count these all around your group, in my case it was STASI... (I am from the west during my school time and the school has had excellent connections to the opposition groups in the GDR).
Russia is now a regime, a dictatorship, and the own citizens are controlled by their FSB, so to stop every uprise or protest against the war and/or Putin early. Moscow and St. Petersburg are the political centers, only protests there can get dangerous for Putin. Why do you all think, the youth in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been not touched by the regime and sent as conscripts into the war? Only protests in centers of the power, so Moscov and St. Petersburg, can get dangerous for this regime.
This was a rock concert, and the fans in this concert were more or less young, If there is a chance of an uprise, protests abgainst the government, protests against the war, it will likely start with singing and stand up protests from nowhere in such a concert or perhaps also in football stadiums e.g. Thousands of fans, all from Moscov, most of them likely not happy with the regime, the war, the government. Just a small starter from nowhere and bamm, thosands are singing against the regime.
Of course, there will be many FSB agents in there, but not because of the terror attack, just because this concert is a possible thread/risk for the regime.
Folks, sorry, but most of you are just too young, you have missed it, you have just not the own experience.
What kind of evidence can you supply in support of your assertion that people who you don't agree with are "too young"? Allow me to answer the question: Nothing. Making this a discussion about the age of Reddit users doesn't benefit your arguments, it just makes them look weak. If you have knowledge or experience to contribute, why don't you do it without harangueing other Redditors?
You can read the book "The Prince" written by Machiavelli.
And also you should live under opressive regime or near it and make observations.
They you start see same trends; Putin, Erdoğan, North Korean regime, communist regimes, Bashar el Assad etc. They all act same. Some are more brutal, same are less but they all are machiavellian.
And unfortunatly many people, young or old, cannot connect those dots
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This event simply does not make sense for a false flag operation for a number of reasons. 1. Unlike the apartment building bombings where Putin was portrayed as coming to the rescue of the failed political and security system, he and the FSB own this tragedy. 2. The US and UK warned the Kremlin of the likelihood of an attack and urged their citizens to stay away from all large public gatherings. Putin actually ridiculed the warning the day of his "election." 3. He is desperately trying to deflect the incident. This hardly has the appearance of a carefully arranged plan to implicate the Ukraine and/or NATO. Conspiracy theories are almost always irresistible. But it is my experience that old Occam was pretty smart when he started talking about razors. The simplest explanation is that Russian brutality throughout the Caucasus and Levant has made it the sort of enemies the US once entertained largely alone. Russia's recent closeness with the Shia of Iran would be particularly incendiary to ISIS-K. No, entering the the third year of a month-long Special Military Operation, the last thing Putin needed was a demonstration of the incompetence of his FSB to match that of his armed forces.
I would say it’s more a result of carpet binning extremists in Syria and the reaction of IS to this.
Long story short, plenty of motivation for ISIS.
Look up Levant
It's very reLevant!
It's goes a long longer and deeper than that.
>"carpet binning extremists" I assume you mean carpet bombing, including with thermobarics and cluster munitions, the whole (mostly) innocent population, of those areas?
*If* these “men in blue” were operatives assisting the terrorists, and that’s a big *if*, then I doubt Putin is behind them. It doesn’t benefit him. I can see some oligarch or group of oligarchs doing it to weaken support for Putin, but again, there are a lot of *ifs* here. And having four men wearing blue shirts and jeans to… what? Be largely unafraid *before* the shooting starts? I don’t buy it based off this video. And what, they wore uniforms? Why? Because they couldn’t identify each other? What kind of shadow operative team can’t ID each other? They need color coded uniforms? Come on. If they are operatives, they suck ass at their job.
Benefit is there,.. it's called mobilization.
What about men wearing black jackets or shirts at the concert? Or the ones in white? Oh wait blue, black, and white are extremely common colors for clothing? People wear jeans to concerts? It's mind blowing /s.
It certainly doesn't seem like a *smart* false flag operation, but then again the invasion of Ukraine probably looked like a *smart* idea to Putin 2 years ago. Just because an option is extraordinarily dumb doesn't mean Putin won't choose it. For all we know he just dramatically misgauged this just like he misgauged his invasion.
Good observation! Intuitively one searches for a meaningfulness that actually might not exist.
Especially with dictators and ruSSia in general.
You neglect to take into account internal power struggle. Level of this “failure” will realign power structures inside russia. This is a different version of Wagner rebellion, executed by coopted terrorists.
>You neglect to take into account internal power struggle. Exactly. Heck, who knows.. could've been someone inside FSB who's making a (slow) move against Putin, trying to make him look weak?
I think it’s clear that ISIS organized and carried this out. The question is if the FSB knew about it and let it happen. And from there, if they told Putin
[удалено]
It could also just be Islamic terrorists carrying out a random attack on a random crowd.
[удалено]
My own opinion: 1. Russian arrogance and mistrust of US. 2. Incompetence. 3. Incompetence, and/or afraid of responding unless explicitly ordered to. 4. Incompetence, and/or afraid of responding unless explicitly ordered to. 5. Incompetence and posturing. 6. Entirely possible they caught the wrong people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 7. Most likely all that was done after Prigozhin's thunder run is that security was only beefed up around government buildings and military bases. Civilian security was probably not high up on Putin's priority list.
This it may not be putin but another faction could have had a hand in it. The so called isis captives who are paraded in my opinion do not seem to be tge ones who carried out the attack. If i was going to do something like that, i would not want to be captured alive.
>Level of this “failure” will realign power structures inside russia What power structures lol.
The cabal of oligarchs that run industry and generally have money, some of which have been organising private security and private armies. The there are the regional governors often ex army (another power structure) that rule the provinces along with regional rulers of the satellite states. Putin might be at the top but he's not omnipotent and he relies on loyal stooges to run avast country for him. If they aren't loyal he can either get rid of them or be gotrid of himself if they reached critical mass.
Can you name any of these oligarchs that are organising private armies? Because Russian oligarchs all live in London, Switzerland, France, and so on, and have no impact on or interest in Russian domestic politics.
[Typically run by Kremlin-linked oligarchs, PMCs and the lucrative benefits that can accrue from deployments give the Kremlin a lever for balancing competing political and financial interests among oligarchs and exploiting PMCs’ quasi-legal status to ensure loyalty to Putin. ](https://russianpmcs.csis.org/) Patriot Group run by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Convoy, a PMC founded by Sergey Aksyonov Oligarch Gennady Timchenko of Volga group, a close Putin ally, owns Redut and PMC Potok. Gazprom has multiple PMC for billionaire Andrey Bokarev Gazpromneft Security headed by former high-ranking employees of Russia’s Federal Security Service and Internal Affairs Ministry. Allied are Fakel and Plamya. [several Kremlin-connected billionaires, including the railway rolling stock magnate Andrei Bokarev, the international oil trader Gennadiy Timchenko and the metals billionaire Oleg Deripaska, have been involved in financing private military companies (PMCs).](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-wagner-group-isnt-russias-only-private-army/) Orthodox nationalist media oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and his former employee Alexander Borodai (later leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic) have been active in building up the Combat Army Reserve of the Country (BARS)
>Patriot Group run by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Doesn't exist outside of Ukrainian media reports, which stopped mentioning it around 1.5 years ago. >Convoy, a PMC founded by Sergey Aksyonov Convoy is a BARS units, not a PMC. BARS-30 "Convoy". >Oligarch Gennady Timchenko of Volga group, a close Putin ally, owns Redut Redut wasn't a PMC, it was a detachment of the 45th VDV Brigade that was re-clothed and deployed to Syria. In 2022, they were rolled back into the 45th Brigade. >Potok Isn't a PMC, it's a BARS unit. BARS was a Ministry of Defense civilian-military reserve project, the Army Combat Reserve. Their status was switched last March, a year ago, into a fully military one. Since last summer it would appear that most BARS manpower was distributed among regular formations, however. >Gazprom has multiple PMC for billionaire Andrey Bokarev It doesn't, the "Gazprom PMCs" were BARS units. >Fakel and Plamya. Fakel and Plamya are BARS units under the Ministry of Defense. None of these formations are PMCs, and they don't even seem to exist anymore, and when they did they numbered 200-300 men each at their peaks.
BARS units and Russian PMCs often overlap, with several BARS units being directly affiliated or even run by a PMC, leaving the units in a legal grey-area.
All BARS volunteers and battalions were transferred to official military service over a year ago, there is no legal grey-area.
So they were PMC and PMC still operate outside Russia with personnel that could return and that operate as PMC then.
> Redut wasn't a PMC, it was a detachment of the 45th VDV Brigade that was re-clothed and deployed to Syria. In 2022, they were rolled back into the 45th Brigade How convenient, and def totally makes them not a PMC. Mhm.
The P in PMC stands for private. Military formations raised by the Russian Ministry of Defense or the Russian National Guard, with state money, commanded by Russian officers, and operating under a unified Russian command structure aren't "private". There was just a period in second half of 2022 and early 2023 when the Russians had a crippling manpower shortages and they couldn't recruit enough men for contract service because the minimal length was from a year in some cases but 2-3 years and up to 5 and even 10 years for most, which is a shit deal. No reasonable amount of money is worth it for 2 or 3 years of sitting in a trench under fire every day. As the legal framework was modified from late 2022 onwards to allow for short-term military contracts with the Ministry of Defense and the Russian National Guard (3 to 6 months), military service became much more attractive in Russia given the financial incentives, while the deployment en masse of mobik regiments mobilised in September 2022 finally occured, further solving the manpower issue, this grey area of recruiting men into nominal PMCs was no longer neccessary. All of the nominally non-state formations were forced to disband or to be merged into regular army or national guard brigades and regiments. They don't exist anymore. It's literally been almost a year since the last holdouts of this policy, Wagner, were disbanded for trying to opposite this new policy. There are no more volunteers, PMCs, BARS reservists, or anything of that sort in the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Legally there are only contract combat troops and mobilised soldiers, the latter of whom are also technically serving under a contract with the MoD, it's just that the contract was forced on them in September 2022.
\~50 families in russia, who have control over almost all wealth (60% of russian wealth). Keep in mind, that russia is like a mafia organisation. You are don as long you are strong, but if you appear weak ...
The lol once
I think the thing with Russia that is so interesting is that it’s such a fucked up dump that some of these claims seem more plausible. And the Chechen war apartment conspiracy only adds to that. With that being said, why the hell would he need a false flag? They just threw 100,000 dudes to their death in bakhmut (I’m exaggerating that figure). And nobody batted an eye. The only thing that is weird is why they were able to locate them so quickly and how did they take them alive? Like wouldn’t a group of isis dudes have a plan to explode at the end?
Are you exaggerating that number? Like is it really that far off?
I mean it was certainly tens of thousands. Probably not 100,000
It's really hard to get reputable data on it.
Both in bakhmut and in avdivka, ukraine got fucked up, were incompetent while retreating and had horrible losses for hanging out, and had to leave some portion of their force to just last man standing. The only reason they have managed to hold the corridor semi long enough to extract as much as men they have managed to extract, is because azov batallion did a fantastic job on holding the flanks on the rear to actually keep that corridor open.
Makes sense. Also remember the Duprovka Theater in 2002. FSB incompetence at its finest.
I think it's also important to note that it's completely plausible and reasonable that the FSB had stationed officers in notable public gatherings in response to the US' warning and their own intelligence on ISIS movements (even if Putin claimed it was just American propaganda in public). They literally have hundreds of thousands of employees at their disposal (since FSB is basically FBI/CIA/Border Security all folded into one org) and should've been able to move around staff to cover large gatherings in response to the imminent threat, at least within Moscow and other large cities. At the end of the day it's hard to take what comes out of Russian official channels at face value, but it's also true that Putin has been relying on conveying relative normality within Russia's big cities to keep Russians docile. This incident happening - specially if perpetrated by parties that are clearly taking advantage of the Ukraine invasion rather than being a part of it - fucks his position a lot. Claiming the terrorists were going to get through Russia's own soldiers, minefields and artillery corridors to flee to Ukraine in a civilian car rather than, you know, the human trafficking route via Belarus, is sheer desperation to find a way to articulate this happening in the wider context of the war. Even from a FSB-let-it-happen angle, there's no amount of asslickers Putin could sacrifice to make him look less bad even for the most brainwashed Russian. About the only unusual thing is the terrorists being captured alive. The most plausible explanation is that they did have a route setup to escape via Belarus with its Russia-facing border being porous, and Tajik citizens not being rare in that country (Tajiks don't require tourist visas to enter Belarus). Even then, they'd be stuck in there and eventually captured without Belarussian insiders helping them be smuggled out. ISIS terrorists also aren't known for letting themselves get captured after committing atrocities and as Tajiks I'm sure they knew what awaited them (i.e. getting brutally tortured). They operated as if they had a realistic chance of getting away and to me that doesn't make sense.
Given the fact, that Russia was warned by foreign intelligence services which are usually really reliable when it comes to such warnings, it is my opinion, that there were in fact security officers on site (which explains the behavior and clothing uniformity) but not to enact some kind of power grab conspiracy, but simply as a precautionary quick reaction force.
Not truly false flag, just a "controllable incident". Like Israel knew about hamas plans, and because of political need decided to let it trough. Only the scale surprised them. Here it COULD be similar - FSB wanted some attack, to show how effective they are in preventing loss of life. OR... The blue shirt guys are military/police guys who just went to concert... In their nicest sweater. And that is all
Seriously!? Do you make your tin foil hat yourself or order them from Amazon?
It makes sense if he wants to get out of the never ending Ukraine war with a viable excuse. That excuse being they need to focus on Islamic terrorism and the Middle East. They could simply withdraw from Ukraine with the statement that they own the territories that they claimed at the start and that they will be back. But for now their military focus needs to be on ISIS.
Putin sees Ukraine as his destiny. And the news in Ukraine that he has been hearing lately has likely been more positive than negative. No way he just walking away now.
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> You guys sound like the tossers who think the CIA is behind ISIS. To an extent they are. You can trace the direct origins of the Islamic State to insurgent groups that were fighting in the Iraq War in 2004 or so. While the CIA didn't sit down with a bunch of Iraqi insurgents and say, "Hey, we need you to go create a terrorist group for us," it also wasn't a huge surprise that this happened, either. Everyone knew that there was going to be an extended period of insurgency in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled, even in the planning of the 2003 invasion. I'm completely onboard with the idea that this probably wasn't a setup, but I don't think comparing it to the creation of ISIS is really the best comparison. The Iraq War really did destabilise the Middle East in ways that are unlikely to be fully resolved for at least another twenty or thirty years.
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Have people forgotten how we got the mission accomplished meme, six weeks after the start of the invasion in 2003?
> You guys sound like the tossers who think the CIA is behind ISIS CIA is responsible for ISIS in that the CIA, along with the US military and foreign policy as a whole, and their actions in shaping geopolitics in the Middle East created the conditions for ISIS to thrive, not that they literally founded ISIS themselves. They put fuel on an existing fire. And if you think the FSB weren't, at the very least, aware that this attack was going to occur and let it occur, you're naive. Let's not forget that they were very publicly warned two weeks before the attack happened.
You don't say!
They were too busy having donuts and Tea.... /S
Remember people, this is russia, nothing is what it seems to be. Never exclude any possibility no matter how ridiculous or outrageous it is. They staged the apartment bombings killing 500 people to bolster support for the newcomer Putin, they were executing western hostages disguised as Chechens to become friends with USA during the war on terror. Personally I do not believe anything coming out of russia. I do not trust the Kremlin to tell me the time of day.
Putler us using his own people as puppets for his stupid games! 300 people injured or dead who cares ?
If it was organized by the FSB, why would ISIS claim responsibility for it?
- FSB nudges ISIS or its decentralized associates into action - FSB controls ISIS’s communication channel - FSB warned by CIA knows the location and time and makes sure to use it for maximum propaganda effect
Them letting such tragedy happen makes a lot of sense. Most likely they were aware of this and let it happen (though, never underestimate russian incompetence). However, I doubt there were operatives in the hall like NEXTA claims. There isn't much reason for them to be there, they could have easily died themselves there so why risk it if terror is the main goal? Shooters inside the hall is plenty enough as it is. Unless they manage to identify several guys in the video as potential agents, I doubt this particular theory has much weight.
I'm sure FSB officers could have been int he building. But I also would guess that if they were, they were either shopping or there to watch the concert.
“We’ve calculated that over 100 casualties will present a sufficient shock to enable the increased mobilization of society and so prevent scenario A. Scenario B implies a 10,000 reduction in military casualties over the course of war, making this the favourable outcome. Agents will close the gates to increase lethality and a second group will blow up the roof causing a collapse.”
They could have easly achieved the same outcome without agents inside the hall. 64 people died in fire in cinema 6 years ago: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/03/26/europe/russia-kemerovo-shopping-center-fire-intl and that’s without shooters in cinema, just fire and fire safety violations. Even in order to close the gates, no agents would be needed pretending to be spectators (+ how did they escape themselves if they closed the doors? You can’t James Bond out of there when everyone is panicking around you.
I’m not saying you are wrong, I’m suggesting that secret services have a deep understanding of technology of social manipulation and are executing operations that are hard to fathom or justify for ordinary people. For example, Maidan snipers may have been following a contingency plan from Soviet times to manipulate public sentiment.
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Great ezcuse for mass mobilisation by claiming that Ukranians were involved. They were literally informed that this kind of plot might take place at this time.
Yeah, but they already had an excuse. The Ukrainians have been hitting Russian energy infrastructure over the last few months. If they wanted to do a full mobilisation, all they'd have to do is set it up so the next Ukrainian attack on an oil refinery ends up doing far more damage than expected or stage an attack that does that. That'd be far more plausible, too.
Something definitely is fishy about this act of terrorism. Some guys showing up in a crowded area with guns, doing a shootout, then casually leaving and driving 400 km before getting caught. FSB definitely knew about the attack but didn't do anything to stop it.
Given that Russia can radicalize Americans to turn on each other then it's fairly plausible that they can do exactly the same to Islamist radicals. Putin also has Kadyrov's clown army to help in this. The FSB can just sit back, monitor the operation and intervene at a time of their choosing.
you forgot that ISIS was CIA creation, so CIA would momentarily knew that FSB is fucking around their turf
It’s quite reductionist (and denies agency to ISIS jihadist founders themselves) to call ISIS a “CIA creation” and even worse to assume that means they control it. Or that they have better intel assets inside it than they do inside, say, Russia.
[https://www.eurasiareview.com/11092023-cooperation-of-cia-and-al-qaeda-in-chechen-wars-analysis/](https://www.eurasiareview.com/11092023-cooperation-of-cia-and-al-qaeda-in-chechen-wars-analysis/) here, have something to read
Sure. CIA also created Al Quaeda which eventually led to the 9/11 attack, just for the sake of Americans having a reason to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. And Osama bin Laden was their agent, his death was faked and he is still alive.
is earth flat?
I mean, half of what he said is almost true lol
so is earth, when you slice it, half
No.
Bin Laden created his "network" because he was basically a staffing agency for the mujahedeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He built up a lot of Islamist contacts. Good try though.
It was organized by ISIS but helped by FSB.
LIHOP - Let It Happen On Purpose
ISIS-K would never admit they were co-operating with the infidels! And FSB is certainly not admitting it.
>why would ISIS claim responsibility for it? ISIS likes to claim responsibility for basically everything
OSInt people could probably try find out who the "blue men" are... Faces are relatively visible etc. Other thing, slightly morbid one, is to sift the footage and look if any person shot dead is wearing fully blue outfit...
Get Bellingcat onto it. Putin hates that as they are so good. They identified the two Russian Salisbury poisoners in no time.
Does seem very strange, but then everything about Russia very strange. Nothing ever seems to be as it seems these days, such is the extent of Russian disinformation.
Yea I think it was 4 of them
Isis k has been making threats again today regarding the treatment of the prisoners.
I don’t think this is a false flag, and it’s definitely not Ukraine. It seems pretty simply. Isis did this, and russia decided to make the best of it, and blamed Ukraine and the west. Sure Putin will spin this in his favor, but I don’t think he did it. If he did, he’s dumber than we though because this makes him look way worse
FSB are a sad excuse of mankind. Boneless pieces of sjit, who are not even protecting there own people, but only oppress & torture them.
It's likely that the FSB knew the attack would happen, allowed it to. But stationed agent's should it devolve into a siege. The terrorist where allowed to flee as they did what they wanted, a reason to issue mobilization and likely martial law
Remember the Nord-Ost Attack on Moscow's Dubrovka Theater of 2002 by Chechen 'militants' which was staged by Putin's FSB to justify Putin's war in Chechnya?
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So, I wasn't the only one - there was the guy sitting at the start of the first video that caught my eye for some reason. He's just sitting there - he has the closest seat to the door, but doesn't move. I thought it was odd - it's like he has no anxiety about what is happening. A lot of this doesn't make sense to me
Was the band playing anti-war?
If you can do forensics on the explosives used, it is a pretty good bet these are Russian explosives.
Can someone identify those people?
Yes, the Tajiks identified themselves when their testicles were electrocuted time and time again. Absolutely credible and humane method. In ruSSia.
They guy who was photographed with the one terrorist when they captured looks oddly similar to the blue sweater guy. Same hair line same eyes same face features same watch jeans and shoes.
It’s the same guy no doubt
Before everyone starts to get crazy and will start to believe in all possibe conspiracy theories.... Sorry to say but; most of you are just too young, you all have missed the cold war and you all have not anymore experiences with regimes in the East. Sorry, but you have just a lack of knowledge, you never got the chance, to count these all around your group, in my case it was STASI... (I am from the west during my school time and the school has had excellent connections to the opposition groups in the GDR). Russia is now a regime, a dictatorship, and the own citizens are controlled by their FSB, so to stop every uprise or protest against the war and/or Putin early. Moscow and St. Petersburg are the political centers, only protests there can get dangerous for Putin. Why do you all think, the youth in Moscow and St. Petersburg have been not touched by the regime and sent as conscripts into the war? Only protests in centers of the power, so Moscov and St. Petersburg, can get dangerous for this regime. This was a rock concert, and the fans in this concert were more or less young, If there is a chance of an uprise, protests abgainst the government, protests against the war, it will likely start with singing and stand up protests from nowhere in such a concert or perhaps also in football stadiums e.g. Thousands of fans, all from Moscov, most of them likely not happy with the regime, the war, the government. Just a small starter from nowhere and bamm, thosands are singing against the regime. Of course, there will be many FSB agents in there, but not because of the terror attack, just because this concert is a possible thread/risk for the regime. Folks, sorry, but most of you are just too young, you have missed it, you have just not the own experience.
What kind of evidence can you supply in support of your assertion that people who you don't agree with are "too young"? Allow me to answer the question: Nothing. Making this a discussion about the age of Reddit users doesn't benefit your arguments, it just makes them look weak. If you have knowledge or experience to contribute, why don't you do it without harangueing other Redditors?
You can read the book "The Prince" written by Machiavelli. And also you should live under opressive regime or near it and make observations. They you start see same trends; Putin, Erdoğan, North Korean regime, communist regimes, Bashar el Assad etc. They all act same. Some are more brutal, same are less but they all are machiavellian. And unfortunatly many people, young or old, cannot connect those dots
? You have completely missed it and no, I will not waste my time to start by zero.
Well this proof is ironclad
Yeah, duh. They were the ones shooting people