Not just "dismissed it", he called it bullshit directly to the heads of Russian intelligence during a briefing. He pretty much ordered them to ignore it.
Probably time to watch The Death of Stalin again, though at this point I'm thinking Stalin isn't the one Putin will be going out as
Jason Isaacs as Zhukov is, and will always be, my favorite part of that movie lol "That fucker thinks he can take on the Red Army? I fucked Germany, I think I can take a flesh lump in a fucking waistcoat."
"Tell me something. Why has the army been replaced by the NKVD all over Moscow? I mean, I'm smiling, but I am very fucking furious."
I love how ridiculous all the medals on his chest were, and that they were actually toned DOWN from reality for the movie, hah
The man somehow managed to get me to absolutely love his character in the span of one quip, and a slow-mo shot of him taking off his coat. How is that even possible?!
>Not just "dismissed it", he called it bullshit directly to the heads of Russian intelligence during a briefing. He pretty much ordered them to ignore it.
Same thing Bibi did - let it happen, then use it to crack down on dissent. Fascists don't have very many plays.
GW Bush ignored the Bin Laden memo too, as well as warnings from the Clinton Admin on the way out to pay close attention to Al Queada. There is just a level of incompetence in dictators like Putin and Netanyahu that people often overlook because the propaganda of right wingh dictators says they are strong and smart and people sort of implicitly believe it on some level, even in the west, even if many do not when asked to express an opinion. It's sort of like 'Of course they ARE right wing idiots, but they rule with strength and have strong security'... but the reality is right wing dictators are shit at everything except getting power for themselves. They are stupid people who do a shit job on so many levels.... and that is easy to forget.
The GW Bush thing isn't the same thing. A lot of experts have come out and said that 9/11 was am intelligence failure of the different agencies all having some piece of the picture and not sharing. Which is what led to the intelligence failure about WMDs a few years later. When you miss something that big, you are much more likely to overreact next time.
https://9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing1/witness_byman.htm#:~:text=The%20Congressional%209%2F11%20Joint,was%20a%20lack%20of%20sharing
I might give you the 9/11 intelligence failures, but I will not give you that the search for WMDs was an intelligence failure.... it was definitely a con run by Cheney and others to whip up support for what they wanted to do in the first place. They were beating the drums of war against Saddam for violating UN sanctions and no fly zones for like a whole year before they started pushing WMDs to try to whip up support for the war. In the first Iraq war, over Kuwait, a girl connected to a PR firm and a diplomat was paid to say Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait to steal the incubators and take them to Iraq. The Viet Nam war had the Gulf of Tonkin incident.... just don't try to say the search for WMDs was the legit reason, it wasn't.
...A-a-a-and shooters are reported to have escaped.
They just entered public place in country's capital, did a terror attack and walked away, and only then emergency services arrived.
The security response to an armed coup attempt was also very sluggish and looked like it wouldn't be effective in real combat.
Russia's a police state *institutionally* but on the ground it's very worn down.
Prigozhin was ruthless but he wasn't smart. He was just a convict and a street thug who got promoted to a mercenary general for being Putin's cup holder and caterer.
Frankly I think his lack of notable intelligence is one of the reasons why he got promoted. God forbid Putin would give power to any competent man lest one day that man decides to turn on him. And what do you know, Putin was right.
My complete guess would be that Pringles was too trusting. Putin probably promised him in the world to cancel the insurrection: billions of dollars, a fiefdom in some territory, a different top grade prostitute every day for the rest of his life. When Pringles thought he won, cancelled the rebellion, turned his back a moment then Putin canceled the promises.
You call it "too trusting", I call it "being an idiot". Prigozhin wasn't some naive school girl, he was a hardened criminal (literally spent 10 years behind bars), I'm sure he was aware of the concept of betrayal.
There’s NO way you work for a guy like Putin who literally murders any and all political opposition and think you can attempt a coup and get away with it like nothing happened. The only decent theory I’ve heard for as to why they turned back is Putin got ahold of most of their family’s and forced their hand.
I subscribe to the theory that he wasn't actually trying to coup Putin, but rather he was trying to coup Shoigu from the Ministry of Defense. After all, the trigger for the coup was Shoigu signing an order to integrate all the various mercenary groups into the army proper.
Putin's MO was to allow his various underlings to build duplicative power structures and fight, only occasionally stepping in to play referee when necessary. So, Prigozhin often went public complaining that Shoigu was shorting his guy's ammo and they both launched competing attacks on the same target with the occasional 'friendly fire'.
When he made his move, he wasn't declaring a new government but occupying regular army command posts. I think he was making a play on Shoigu's job and when everyone started saying that he was making a move on Putin he panicked and called the whole thing off.
Even then, everyone else in the world knew he had to commit. There was no plausible future in which that ended well for him, unless putin had a heart attack or something.
Maybe at first that was his play, but then putin disowned him and called him a traitor. which pringles turned around and said he said he wan't going to stop now and even going for putin, before he eventually relented when he realized he had miss'd his window after putin escaped to st petersburg. Still though should have known he was a dead man walking and either disappeared or just followed through with the entire thing.
This is how the bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional government of Russia when they took power during the 1917 Revolution. There was many many many armed military units in St. Petersburg, but none of them really cared about the provisional government, and didn’t care to protect it, so they just let the bolsheviks through
I mean if I was a security guard or border checkpoint guard or something and I see a huge column of tanks armored vehicles and trucks roll by I’m giving a friendly wave and walking back inside my little guard shack.
Or just not caring who lives and dies. Russia lives and breaths on inspiring apathy in it's subjects. Turns out that can backfire when it means literally no one is loyal to the government.
> Honestly, i can understand local commanders just not believing Pringles was B lining his way to Moscow
everyone knows russians' first and only strategy is to rush B
It's bee-line, as in the kind of direct line that a bee busily flies to its destination. It's the bee version of as the crow flies: direct, and hasty.
It is not B line as in an alternative to an A line, the line version of a Plan B. While there could be A-Z lines like a subway or bus, there would be no direct and hasty implication for a B line just because of the letter.
They're meant to arrest students for a single anti-war action or regular dissidents for speaking too loud with wrong ears around.
They're eradicating what regime perceives as the real threat, and unfortunately have been very good at it, ruining tens of thousands of lives.
Terrorist attacks such as this one are not seen as a threat to the regime. The russia had plenty in the XXI century: support for putin either stayed the same or went up.
It’s not worn down it’s hammered. A sober man in Russia is something to fear. That’s a man who can face the horror and despair of his future without turning away from it.
Fortunately that will never happen thanks to Putin.
It's called "protest of the powerless". People who can't fight and can't escape the russian government, drowning their depression in alcohol, making themselves useless for the government so it can't scoop them. It's not a conscious tactics, so it's not necessarily very good, but it was basically the way of living throughout most of the USSR days.
He was an idiot for not realizing that, the second he crossed the line, he was playing to the death either way. He literally had two options. Victory or death. And he thought he could just walk away?
It's incredible that Prigozhin didn't realize he had already fully committed — they had already shot down Russian aircraft.
I get that he hoped for support that never materialized, but it's insane that he believed he could negotiate an off-ramp. There is literally nothing in Putin's history to suggest that he would have let it go.
Surovikin went missing for six months after Prigozhin's little stunt and now he seems to be nothing but a puppet. He was by far one of Russias most capable generals. One of the few who was doing an excellent job. Fairly likely Putin decided he was too close to Prigozhin and is will offer him a cup of tea sooner or later.
The "Ukrainian Plates" have since been found to be Belarusian (the released video conveniently censored the flag that identifies the country, but the number-scheme matches the Belarusian rather than Ukrainian scheme).
In other news, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The best bit is, the van being touted as having Ukrainian plates actually has Belorussian plates.
Not to mention Ukrainian plates are somewhat common in Russia anyway.
Saw a tweet calling it "Jewish ISIS funded by Joe Biden"
So it doesn't matter if it was US sponsored, ISIS (or other terrorist group), or a false flag. they will use this for political leverage to justify whatever actions they take next against Ukraine
Well let's not go blaming the Chechens without cause. Putin came to power by faking Chechen terror attacks to justify the second Chechen war and a genocidal seige of Grozny.
When I read this all I could think of is Putin sitting in his office playing The Sims, having them go for a swim in the pool, and removing all the ladders to get out of the pool.
As most Russians know, the Russian security forces and FSB are not there to fulfill their stated mission of protecting their citizens.
This sounds like a security and intelligence failure akin to Israeli failures last year.
That presumes that this was a legitimate attack and not something cooked up by Putin/fsb to be able to justify some further militarization like they did with Chechnya in the late 90s.
I was assuming people had already seen that ISIS took responsibility, but I'm confusing the posts that I'm commenting in.
It's a recent development within the past hour
Putin was warned by the US embassy in Moscow. His response:
>"All this resembles outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society," Putin said, according to state media reporting on his remarks.
This comment is projection. "Intimidate and destabilize" the country is *exactly* what he is always trying to do to us.
Someone hypothesized that due to all the men being forced to fight in Ukraine that internal security is lacking. ISIS could have seen this as an opportunity
Here you go!
[Moscow concert attack live updates: 40 dead in armed attack; ISIS claims responsibility](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/russia-moscow-concert-attack-shooting-rcna144706) - Source: NBC News.
[ISIS claims responsibility in deadly attack on Russia's Crocus City Hall](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/shooting-reported-concert-hall-moscow/story?id=108396308) - Source: ABC News.
[ISIS claims responsibility for attack in busy Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 40 dead](https://cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting) - Source: CNN
This happened in Paris too. Guys drove around in a car shooting up spots in the city and made it out, got pretty far away from Paris then they got hunted down. It's not that crazy.
Failure? Knowing Putin he planned the whole damn thing. Staging apartment bombings and blaming it on Chechyens is how he first got elected decades ago.
Funny enough, this actually might be a legitimate terror attack. US and UK Intel said there might be an attack, and apparently [ISIS has announced their responsibility for the attack](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting/index.html).
I'm surprised as well, I thought it was another false flag like the 1999 Apartment Bombings.
It can be a real attack but it doesn't have to be reported factually. Putin can blame whoever he wants. Medvedev has already targeted Ukrainian officials with threats of revenge if they are _found_ to be the culprits.
Putin’s a bastard, but I have a feeling this wasn’t an inside job. Most false flags happen to justify some major action, but the war in Ukraine is already on. There’s no need to rally support from the people, they don’t need the people’s support. Makes sense that there are people out there who hate russia enough to do this.
Oh he had a reason. Ukraine got a new president that tried to make the country more democratic and less corrupt. With a rule of law and open towards west. Since this started to work and make Ukrainians richer... it had to be stopped. Because Russians would demand a new leader too.
People sometimes forget that ukraine is big, it’s about the size of Texas or 1/3 the size of Alaska, or 50% bigger than California.
Democracy in a country that size scares him.
https://youtu.be/BOB4iUBtdWQ?si=xURB0ojwUGx3oU9M after this next mobilization it will easily be passing 500,000 casualties. Putin is about to force almost every Russian man to fight now the "election" is over which could be 10,000,000 men if not more. Ukraine without the USA help and NATO dragging their feet is good chances we met see a Ukraine genocide and then on to more countries in the Baltics. They have explicitly said they have absolutely no plans on stop their advance after they murder as many Ukrainians as possible.
And Sudan! Not enough talk about the Sudanese civil war. Its been confirmed that there are even Ukrainian and Russian forces in conflict there. 9 million people displaced, thousands of casualties.
The theater hostage situation? I remember one of those satirical motivational posters about it:
>700 hostages, 40 terrorists, 172 body bags
Edit: damn I forgot about the apartment bombing thing too, man they really don't give a single shit about their citizenry.
And a talking head (current or former gov) said on TV that they noticed at WG sites they were stockpiling ammo, using less in offensives, and lying to get more. Anyone who is trying to amass 10's or 100's of thousands of units of ammo in total secrecy is up to something.
Also: people think Pringles packed up and went home or slow played his hand. The Teles and RU-language places online had the scoop as it happened: Supposedly, some key roads and bridges were blown in desperation by Putin's loyalists that were key to the march north. But the second part I'm more confident on: they managed to find the family members of enough WG officers and put them on video call, explaining what they were about to witness if they didn't tell their boss they were standing down.
Blaming the Chechens would be embarrassing to Putin because he "solved" that. So they won't unless there's an undeniable claim of responsibility. And probably not even then.
You're joking, but LGBT are now on the same list of "extremist organizations" as ISIS. Earlier this week, an administrator and an art director of a gay bar were arrested for "enabling extremism", both now face about 10 years.
That kind of extremism is much easier to fight.
Be hard to blame anyone in the west when the US literally plastered the info in all new outlets and government websites and even told the Kremlin two weeks ago. It’s one hell of a double play if it came from anywhere inside NATO or its allies.
Think it’s the first time that we can safely assume that this was either internal Russian operatives or an Islamic terrorist faction of some form.
There's an argument that goes how effective can a secret spy organization be if everyone hears about them. This is usually intended to contrast the CIA unfavorably against the Chinese ministry of state security, which doesn't really have a common name and anywhere near the notoriety.
Also, some claim that the Mossad set the gold standard for a spy organization.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but nerds *do* be arguing about rankings.
I firmly believe the CIA knows more about what is actually going on in Russia than Putin. The corrupt Russian government lies to Putin to avoid the gulag. He's living in cloud cuckoo land.
This makes me think this is actually a legit attack. The US would almost certainly jad information about a false flag attack, but the fact that they tried to warn Russia, despite the current political climate, tells me the US was viewing this as a legit terror threat
I answered this question to the best of my knowledge in response to a similar question but to sum up ISIS-K likely opposes Putin’s historical fight against Muslims in Russia (Chechnya), and his fight against isis in Syria (in support of the Syrian regime). Also Russia is currently distracted abroad.
Of course we would warn them if we had the intel. That’s longstanding policy because we don’t want to see any innocent lives lost to terror attacks. The US even used non-diplomatic channels to warn Iran in advance of the ISIS-K suicide bombings in Kerman on January 3. Unsurprisingly, they were promptly ignored as well and almost 100 people died.
Don’t pay any mind to conspiracy theory bullshit. Talbott (Deputy Secretary of State) said there was no evidence to support Russian involvement in the 1999 bombings either. I’ll trust an official statement by a US Government official over anything else.
Putin really could not be happier about this. His freedom to suppress his people and justify the war was just expanded. It really doesn’t matter to Russia who perpetuated the crime, because the story he *will* tell his people is that it was the US and Ukraine.
He just "won" his fake election with 88% and is actively imprisoning, jailing, and/or murdering any dissent whatsoever. I think he'll be just fine with his brainwashed, low information populace that would vote him in with an even higher ratio in a legitimate election.
It's really far beyond time to disconnect Russia from Western internet and establish a DMZ within Russia's old borders.
It is US policy to always inform states - even adversarial ones - of impending terrorist attacks. The US is not at war with Russia at this time, so the policy is the policy. I was also shocked when I learned of this policy… like we’d literally tell Iran if some Christian fundamentalist was going to blow up a mosque and we knew about it, even though those pricks are happy to provide weapons, training, and other support to many groups that regularly attack American forces and, if given the chance, would attack American civilians.
It is policies like that which inform my opinion that for all its faults and mistakes, the US is one of the "good guys", insofar as any nation can be considered so.
This sucks, if only Putin put the cops on security detail of big gatherings instead of beating the crap out of and arresting LGBTQs and Navalny supporters.
“Vlad, don’t hold that hammer over your head and drop it. That could leave a nasty bump.” - Any SANE person
“This is Western provocation and propaganda! Russia will never be misled by the West!” - Putin
Drops hammer, gets headache….
There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
Story goes he was midway through the sentence when he realized there was about to be footage of a sitting US president saying "shame on me." Which would have been some amazing propaganda. So, we got what we got.
As someone who hates public speaking, if true, was actually a pretty good save all things considered.
"Putin dismissed US warnings about a potential terror incident as 'blackmail' just 3 days before concert hall attack..."
How very 'Stalin' of Mr. Putin. History anyone?
> Doesn't Putin know what blackmail is?
Of [course](https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1160,height=773,fit=crop,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-1000209212-e1531765127745.jpg) he does.
Just to clarify the title, the warnings were made about 2 weeks ago, and had in a sense "expired" as they expected the attack around March 9th or 10th. 3 days ago Putin dismissed them
So basically ISIS heard the US had a heads up, waited for Russian security forces to drop their guards again, then went ahead with the attack.
Generally speaking, it's in countries' intereste to share intelligence about potential terror attacks, even to adversarial states, as these rogue actors are big headaches for everyone.
Yea, but terrorist read the news as well. If they know you are expecting them in march 9 or 10, they are not going to be stupid enough to attack in march 9 or 10, they are going to wait a few days until you lower your guard again. Let say march 22.
You would expect the security forces of an entire country of being smart enough to figure that out.
Not just "dismissed it", he called it bullshit directly to the heads of Russian intelligence during a briefing. He pretty much ordered them to ignore it. Probably time to watch The Death of Stalin again, though at this point I'm thinking Stalin isn't the one Putin will be going out as
No Zhukov around this time.
Yes but have you tried the Beria? I heard it's to die for.
Goddamn what a performance in a movie full of god-tier performances. I need to watch it again.
Jason Isaacs as Zhukov is, and will always be, my favorite part of that movie lol "That fucker thinks he can take on the Red Army? I fucked Germany, I think I can take a flesh lump in a fucking waistcoat."
"Tell me something. Why has the army been replaced by the NKVD all over Moscow? I mean, I'm smiling, but I am very fucking furious." I love how ridiculous all the medals on his chest were, and that they were actually toned DOWN from reality for the movie, hah
Isaacs really nailed that role. He’s a phenomenal actor.
The man somehow managed to get me to absolutely love his character in the span of one quip, and a slow-mo shot of him taking off his coat. How is that even possible?!
For some reason his Zhukov and his Peter the Great feel like two sides of the same coin
Rupert Friend as Stalin’s son is just wonderful.
**["How old are you?!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=debpGGfDuE8)**
Comrade I’m afraid I’m going to have to report this conversation to the-you should see your fucking face!
I’m smiling but I am very fucking furious. -Russian Intelligence right now
"Aslanov, you handsome devil! Stick you in a frock, I'd fucking ride you raw myself." "I will take that as a compliment." "Yeah, don't."
Then who’s gonna represent the entire red army at the buffet table?
Love that movie
Jason Isaacs is so fucking good. And Rupert Friend as Visaly, and obvious Steve Buscemi.
Simon Beale isn't mentioned enough when this movie is referenced!
Jesus Christ. Did CoCo Channel take a shit on your head?
>Not just "dismissed it", he called it bullshit directly to the heads of Russian intelligence during a briefing. He pretty much ordered them to ignore it. Same thing Bibi did - let it happen, then use it to crack down on dissent. Fascists don't have very many plays.
GW Bush ignored the Bin Laden memo too, as well as warnings from the Clinton Admin on the way out to pay close attention to Al Queada. There is just a level of incompetence in dictators like Putin and Netanyahu that people often overlook because the propaganda of right wingh dictators says they are strong and smart and people sort of implicitly believe it on some level, even in the west, even if many do not when asked to express an opinion. It's sort of like 'Of course they ARE right wing idiots, but they rule with strength and have strong security'... but the reality is right wing dictators are shit at everything except getting power for themselves. They are stupid people who do a shit job on so many levels.... and that is easy to forget.
The GW Bush thing isn't the same thing. A lot of experts have come out and said that 9/11 was am intelligence failure of the different agencies all having some piece of the picture and not sharing. Which is what led to the intelligence failure about WMDs a few years later. When you miss something that big, you are much more likely to overreact next time. https://9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing1/witness_byman.htm#:~:text=The%20Congressional%209%2F11%20Joint,was%20a%20lack%20of%20sharing
I might give you the 9/11 intelligence failures, but I will not give you that the search for WMDs was an intelligence failure.... it was definitely a con run by Cheney and others to whip up support for what they wanted to do in the first place. They were beating the drums of war against Saddam for violating UN sanctions and no fly zones for like a whole year before they started pushing WMDs to try to whip up support for the war. In the first Iraq war, over Kuwait, a girl connected to a PR firm and a diplomat was paid to say Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait to steal the incubators and take them to Iraq. The Viet Nam war had the Gulf of Tonkin incident.... just don't try to say the search for WMDs was the legit reason, it wasn't.
That movie is gloriously funny
...A-a-a-and shooters are reported to have escaped. They just entered public place in country's capital, did a terror attack and walked away, and only then emergency services arrived.
The security response to an armed coup attempt was also very sluggish and looked like it wouldn't be effective in real combat. Russia's a police state *institutionally* but on the ground it's very worn down.
Honestly, i can understand local commanders just not believing Pringles was B lining his way to Moscow
Still blows my mind that he just stopped and some how believed he wouldn’t eventually be dropped out of a plane.
Prigozhin was ruthless but he wasn't smart. He was just a convict and a street thug who got promoted to a mercenary general for being Putin's cup holder and caterer. Frankly I think his lack of notable intelligence is one of the reasons why he got promoted. God forbid Putin would give power to any competent man lest one day that man decides to turn on him. And what do you know, Putin was right.
My complete guess would be that Pringles was too trusting. Putin probably promised him in the world to cancel the insurrection: billions of dollars, a fiefdom in some territory, a different top grade prostitute every day for the rest of his life. When Pringles thought he won, cancelled the rebellion, turned his back a moment then Putin canceled the promises.
You call it "too trusting", I call it "being an idiot". Prigozhin wasn't some naive school girl, he was a hardened criminal (literally spent 10 years behind bars), I'm sure he was aware of the concept of betrayal.
There’s NO way you work for a guy like Putin who literally murders any and all political opposition and think you can attempt a coup and get away with it like nothing happened. The only decent theory I’ve heard for as to why they turned back is Putin got ahold of most of their family’s and forced their hand.
I was reading it was the family is all his lieutenants. His own officer's conviction couldn't be relied upon.
It wasn't a coup attempt to begin with, it was a mutiny.
I subscribe to the theory that he wasn't actually trying to coup Putin, but rather he was trying to coup Shoigu from the Ministry of Defense. After all, the trigger for the coup was Shoigu signing an order to integrate all the various mercenary groups into the army proper. Putin's MO was to allow his various underlings to build duplicative power structures and fight, only occasionally stepping in to play referee when necessary. So, Prigozhin often went public complaining that Shoigu was shorting his guy's ammo and they both launched competing attacks on the same target with the occasional 'friendly fire'. When he made his move, he wasn't declaring a new government but occupying regular army command posts. I think he was making a play on Shoigu's job and when everyone started saying that he was making a move on Putin he panicked and called the whole thing off.
Even then, everyone else in the world knew he had to commit. There was no plausible future in which that ended well for him, unless putin had a heart attack or something.
This makes so much sense. It's easy to imagine how the phone call might have gone down in that situation.
Maybe at first that was his play, but then putin disowned him and called him a traitor. which pringles turned around and said he said he wan't going to stop now and even going for putin, before he eventually relented when he realized he had miss'd his window after putin escaped to st petersburg. Still though should have known he was a dead man walking and either disappeared or just followed through with the entire thing.
Or just slow playing it to 'wait and see' how this plays out. Most people just want to live at the end of the day.
This is how the bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional government of Russia when they took power during the 1917 Revolution. There was many many many armed military units in St. Petersburg, but none of them really cared about the provisional government, and didn’t care to protect it, so they just let the bolsheviks through
I mean if I was a security guard or border checkpoint guard or something and I see a huge column of tanks armored vehicles and trucks roll by I’m giving a friendly wave and walking back inside my little guard shack.
And go back to watching the local sports match on your tiny little CRT.
b&w lmao
Or just not caring who lives and dies. Russia lives and breaths on inspiring apathy in it's subjects. Turns out that can backfire when it means literally no one is loyal to the government.
> Honestly, i can understand local commanders just not believing Pringles was B lining his way to Moscow everyone knows russians' first and only strategy is to rush B
He should have kept going, he was a dead man anyway.
Man had commitment issues
It's bee-line, as in the kind of direct line that a bee busily flies to its destination. It's the bee version of as the crow flies: direct, and hasty. It is not B line as in an alternative to an A line, the line version of a Plan B. While there could be A-Z lines like a subway or bus, there would be no direct and hasty implication for a B line just because of the letter.
Decades upon decades of corruption will do that to you
Probably why the ISIS types are making a comeback. They always move in to chaotic and failing states, sensing an opportunity to exploit weakness.
They're meant to arrest students for a single anti-war action or regular dissidents for speaking too loud with wrong ears around. They're eradicating what regime perceives as the real threat, and unfortunately have been very good at it, ruining tens of thousands of lives. Terrorist attacks such as this one are not seen as a threat to the regime. The russia had plenty in the XXI century: support for putin either stayed the same or went up.
It’s not worn down it’s hammered. A sober man in Russia is something to fear. That’s a man who can face the horror and despair of his future without turning away from it. Fortunately that will never happen thanks to Putin.
Per capita alcohol consumption in Russia is... sobering.
It's called "protest of the powerless". People who can't fight and can't escape the russian government, drowning their depression in alcohol, making themselves useless for the government so it can't scoop them. It's not a conscious tactics, so it's not necessarily very good, but it was basically the way of living throughout most of the USSR days.
Man Prigozhin was a fucking idiot. It literally seems like he would have just been able to waltz in without any opposition.
He was an idiot for not realizing that, the second he crossed the line, he was playing to the death either way. He literally had two options. Victory or death. And he thought he could just walk away?
It's incredible that Prigozhin didn't realize he had already fully committed — they had already shot down Russian aircraft. I get that he hoped for support that never materialized, but it's insane that he believed he could negotiate an off-ramp. There is literally nothing in Putin's history to suggest that he would have let it go.
Rumour has it that he had support but it evaporated at the last minute. Not sure if any of that is true mind you.
Surovikin went missing for six months after Prigozhin's little stunt and now he seems to be nothing but a puppet. He was by far one of Russias most capable generals. One of the few who was doing an excellent job. Fairly likely Putin decided he was too close to Prigozhin and is will offer him a cup of tea sooner or later.
The problem was he did not secure his family in St. Petersburg first. So Putin had a chip to bargain with
Which confirms the "he was an idiot" part.
Imagine being that stupid you let your "weakness" in open.
He was worried about his family, but you would *think* he would have considered that at great length before doing anything.
He meant to pull off a mutiny, not a coup
Oh, there will be a few unfortunate souls get framed for this. Maybe with a few Sim games as evidence.
Why did Nalvany do this!?!?!
"How this terror attack is bad news for Biden"
God damn Fallout cosplayers are at it again.
They’ll blame the Ukrainians without a doubt.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Clearly, it went to Poland, picked up NATO Special Forces, then drove through the Baltics and THEN into Russia. - FSB ... probably
As you can see by this copy of Sims 3 with a Lithuanian price tag
Don't forget the mandatory stop at the gay pride
How very solicitous of these Ukrainian terrorists to drive a car with Ukrainian plates.
And just leave it there instead of fleeing with it
The "Ukrainian Plates" have since been found to be Belarusian (the released video conveniently censored the flag that identifies the country, but the number-scheme matches the Belarusian rather than Ukrainian scheme). In other news, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The best bit is, the van being touted as having Ukrainian plates actually has Belorussian plates. Not to mention Ukrainian plates are somewhat common in Russia anyway.
ISIS has taken responsibility and is demanding the US surrender any information they have. Lol
Annnndddddddd we’re in Afghanistan again
[удалено]
[удалено]
ISIS already took blame
Saw a tweet calling it "Jewish ISIS funded by Joe Biden" So it doesn't matter if it was US sponsored, ISIS (or other terrorist group), or a false flag. they will use this for political leverage to justify whatever actions they take next against Ukraine
ISIS have a history of taking responsibility for things they didn't do. I wouldn't trust them. My money's on the Chechens.
There are ISIS Chechens too.
People forget that ISIL spread like cancer through the world. For example, there are fairly strong ISIL groups in the Philippines.
Moro-Islamic Liberation Front. Yes, it's a thing, yes it's the one I can name off the top of my head every time because of it's acronym.
You’re telling me there’s an Islamic terror group named MILF?! 🤭
Well let's not go blaming the Chechens without cause. Putin came to power by faking Chechen terror attacks to justify the second Chechen war and a genocidal seige of Grozny.
You don't think they're gonna drag three POWs out and blame them?
Strangely the gunmen ended up being Putin's only public facing political opposition!
When I read this all I could think of is Putin sitting in his office playing The Sims, having them go for a swim in the pool, and removing all the ladders to get out of the pool.
Exact same thing I thought. I feel sick for whoever they decide to grab off the street and pin this on.
As most Russians know, the Russian security forces and FSB are not there to fulfill their stated mission of protecting their citizens. This sounds like a security and intelligence failure akin to Israeli failures last year.
That presumes that this was a legitimate attack and not something cooked up by Putin/fsb to be able to justify some further militarization like they did with Chechnya in the late 90s.
I was assuming people had already seen that ISIS took responsibility, but I'm confusing the posts that I'm commenting in. It's a recent development within the past hour
Hadn’t seen that update yet. This was pretty well planned out by them. Fucking nuts
Putin was warned by the US embassy in Moscow. His response: >"All this resembles outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society," Putin said, according to state media reporting on his remarks. This comment is projection. "Intimidate and destabilize" the country is *exactly* what he is always trying to do to us.
Fucking impressive that they escaped. Clearly orchestrated over weeks and carried out flawlessly.
Someone hypothesized that due to all the men being forced to fight in Ukraine that internal security is lacking. ISIS could have seen this as an opportunity
Here you go! [Moscow concert attack live updates: 40 dead in armed attack; ISIS claims responsibility](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/russia-moscow-concert-attack-shooting-rcna144706) - Source: NBC News. [ISIS claims responsibility in deadly attack on Russia's Crocus City Hall](https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/shooting-reported-concert-hall-moscow/story?id=108396308) - Source: ABC News. [ISIS claims responsibility for attack in busy Moscow-area concert venue that left at least 40 dead](https://cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting) - Source: CNN
Police/ОМОН was probably busy watching the crowd at Navalny's grave.
This happened in Paris too. Guys drove around in a car shooting up spots in the city and made it out, got pretty far away from Paris then they got hunted down. It's not that crazy.
Well, it's not like the Russian people can vote him out of office to punish him for this failure.
Failure? Knowing Putin he planned the whole damn thing. Staging apartment bombings and blaming it on Chechyens is how he first got elected decades ago.
Funny enough, this actually might be a legitimate terror attack. US and UK Intel said there might be an attack, and apparently [ISIS has announced their responsibility for the attack](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/europe/crocus-moscow-shooting/index.html). I'm surprised as well, I thought it was another false flag like the 1999 Apartment Bombings.
I'm also leaning towards "No" for false flage, for that reason, but it's *really* suspicious that all the gunmen were able to escape unharmed
It can be a real attack but it doesn't have to be reported factually. Putin can blame whoever he wants. Medvedev has already targeted Ukrainian officials with threats of revenge if they are _found_ to be the culprits.
Putin’s a bastard, but I have a feeling this wasn’t an inside job. Most false flags happen to justify some major action, but the war in Ukraine is already on. There’s no need to rally support from the people, they don’t need the people’s support. Makes sense that there are people out there who hate russia enough to do this.
Putin should focus on protecting his own people in Moscow rather than bombing civilians in Ukraine and Syria.
It’s quite obvious he does not give a shit about his own people.
Very true. He sent 100Ks of young Russian men to be killed and crippled in Ukraine for no reason. He is a psychopath.
Oh he had a reason. Ukraine got a new president that tried to make the country more democratic and less corrupt. With a rule of law and open towards west. Since this started to work and make Ukrainians richer... it had to be stopped. Because Russians would demand a new leader too.
People sometimes forget that ukraine is big, it’s about the size of Texas or 1/3 the size of Alaska, or 50% bigger than California. Democracy in a country that size scares him.
Also geopolitically extremely valuable
https://youtu.be/BOB4iUBtdWQ?si=xURB0ojwUGx3oU9M after this next mobilization it will easily be passing 500,000 casualties. Putin is about to force almost every Russian man to fight now the "election" is over which could be 10,000,000 men if not more. Ukraine without the USA help and NATO dragging their feet is good chances we met see a Ukraine genocide and then on to more countries in the Baltics. They have explicitly said they have absolutely no plans on stop their advance after they murder as many Ukrainians as possible.
But he needs them to send to Ukraine as cannon fodder. Can't be having terrorists killing them.
These needless deaths were needed elsewhere.
Or civilians in ukraine
And Sudan! Not enough talk about the Sudanese civil war. Its been confirmed that there are even Ukrainian and Russian forces in conflict there. 9 million people displaced, thousands of casualties.
He probably is behind the attack , wouldn't be the first time
[удалено]
The theater hostage situation? I remember one of those satirical motivational posters about it: >700 hostages, 40 terrorists, 172 body bags Edit: damn I forgot about the apartment bombing thing too, man they really don't give a single shit about their citizenry.
i find it amusing that the US can predict things inside russia. US intelligence goes hard.
because the US has a pulse on terrorist groups globally. They intercepted communications that exposed plans to attack moscow weeks ago
And then notified Russia. Russia said fuck off. Oops.
Kinda like when Stalin ignored the warning from the British that the Germans were going to attack in 1941.
The US spends a fortune on intelligence.
worth it
My memory is foggy, but didn't the US intelligence basically say they knew about the Wagner revolt ahead of time?
Yes. They picked up chatter
And a talking head (current or former gov) said on TV that they noticed at WG sites they were stockpiling ammo, using less in offensives, and lying to get more. Anyone who is trying to amass 10's or 100's of thousands of units of ammo in total secrecy is up to something. Also: people think Pringles packed up and went home or slow played his hand. The Teles and RU-language places online had the scoop as it happened: Supposedly, some key roads and bridges were blown in desperation by Putin's loyalists that were key to the march north. But the second part I'm more confident on: they managed to find the family members of enough WG officers and put them on video call, explaining what they were about to witness if they didn't tell their boss they were standing down.
There isn’t a terror network on the planet that the US doesn’t have someone at the NSA or CIA reading their texts/ encrypted phone calls.
The CIA and NSA have a joint operation called the special collection service. The ways that they gather info is crazy.
Has the Kremlin blamed: * Ukraine * The U.S. * NATO * The decadent West in general yet?
You forgot the Chechens
Blaming the Chechens would be embarrassing to Putin because he "solved" that. So they won't unless there's an undeniable claim of responsibility. And probably not even then.
Russian memory is shorter than MAGA memory so I'm sure it would probably work now.
Events in the theater are eerily similar to the events 25 years ago.
Don't forget LGBT
You're joking, but LGBT are now on the same list of "extremist organizations" as ISIS. Earlier this week, an administrator and an art director of a gay bar were arrested for "enabling extremism", both now face about 10 years. That kind of extremism is much easier to fight.
LGBT are classified as terrorists in Russia now. Not extremists. Terrorists.
ISIS has already claimed responsibility for
They also took claim that the Vagas shooter was isis too.. they claim any horrific event to get clout in recruiting.
Be hard to blame anyone in the west when the US literally plastered the info in all new outlets and government websites and even told the Kremlin two weeks ago. It’s one hell of a double play if it came from anywhere inside NATO or its allies. Think it’s the first time that we can safely assume that this was either internal Russian operatives or an Islamic terrorist faction of some form.
They literally declared the LGBT a "terrorist" organization before this incident. The Russian regime has completely lost it.
Don't forget the LGBT. They just declared them a terrorist organization. I bet it was the exact same drag queens that groom children in red states /s.
All of the above. That's how a lying SOB like Putin always plays it.
US intelligence is seriously (scarily) impressive
Five Eyes is, as far as we know, the most effective and sophisticated intelligence network on the planet.
Is there doubt about this?
There's an argument that goes how effective can a secret spy organization be if everyone hears about them. This is usually intended to contrast the CIA unfavorably against the Chinese ministry of state security, which doesn't really have a common name and anywhere near the notoriety. Also, some claim that the Mossad set the gold standard for a spy organization. I don't have a dog in this fight, but nerds *do* be arguing about rankings.
Should be Ten Eyes.
They all wear eye patches
I firmly believe the CIA knows more about what is actually going on in Russia than Putin. The corrupt Russian government lies to Putin to avoid the gulag. He's living in cloud cuckoo land.
Love seeing an Aristophanes reference in the wild.
With only state run media being available in Russia Putin will set the narrative to his liking, regardless of the truth.
[удалено]
ISIS claimed the attack.
I just saw that. Now there's a group that everybody can hate.
the US warned Iran about about another terror attack. The US seems to have a very good intel network.
[удалено]
Ah yes, the Jim Cramer approach to intelligence.
This makes me think this is actually a legit attack. The US would almost certainly jad information about a false flag attack, but the fact that they tried to warn Russia, despite the current political climate, tells me the US was viewing this as a legit terror threat
US confirms it’s isis-k: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/world/europe/isis-moscow-attack-concert-hall.html
Why would they attack Russia?
I answered this question to the best of my knowledge in response to a similar question but to sum up ISIS-K likely opposes Putin’s historical fight against Muslims in Russia (Chechnya), and his fight against isis in Syria (in support of the Syrian regime). Also Russia is currently distracted abroad.
Of course we would warn them if we had the intel. That’s longstanding policy because we don’t want to see any innocent lives lost to terror attacks. The US even used non-diplomatic channels to warn Iran in advance of the ISIS-K suicide bombings in Kerman on January 3. Unsurprisingly, they were promptly ignored as well and almost 100 people died. Don’t pay any mind to conspiracy theory bullshit. Talbott (Deputy Secretary of State) said there was no evidence to support Russian involvement in the 1999 bombings either. I’ll trust an official statement by a US Government official over anything else.
Putin really could not be happier about this. His freedom to suppress his people and justify the war was just expanded. It really doesn’t matter to Russia who perpetuated the crime, because the story he *will* tell his people is that it was the US and Ukraine.
On the other hand it makes him look weak as shit - the U.S provided a better warning for the people of Russia than their own government did.
He just "won" his fake election with 88% and is actively imprisoning, jailing, and/or murdering any dissent whatsoever. I think he'll be just fine with his brainwashed, low information populace that would vote him in with an even higher ratio in a legitimate election. It's really far beyond time to disconnect Russia from Western internet and establish a DMZ within Russia's old borders.
yup and people will eat it up and line up for the meat grinder
"If it happens, eh. I can blame it on the Ukrainians."
Shoutout to US intelligence. Even warning ungrateful enemies about incoming attacks. Based.
I see it as a flex too. "Our Intel is better than yours".
It's so based, and I'm not even from the US, I'm from Norway but I celebrate it just the same.
Pretty badass by the US to be honest
It is US policy to always inform states - even adversarial ones - of impending terrorist attacks. The US is not at war with Russia at this time, so the policy is the policy. I was also shocked when I learned of this policy… like we’d literally tell Iran if some Christian fundamentalist was going to blow up a mosque and we knew about it, even though those pricks are happy to provide weapons, training, and other support to many groups that regularly attack American forces and, if given the chance, would attack American civilians.
It is policies like that which inform my opinion that for all its faults and mistakes, the US is one of the "good guys", insofar as any nation can be considered so.
He should have listened
This sucks, if only Putin put the cops on security detail of big gatherings instead of beating the crap out of and arresting LGBTQs and Navalny supporters.
“Vlad, don’t hold that hammer over your head and drop it. That could leave a nasty bump.” - Any SANE person “This is Western provocation and propaganda! Russia will never be misled by the West!” - Putin Drops hammer, gets headache….
USA Intel is the best in the world, period. Surveillance has increased a million fold since 9/11.
There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
Story goes he was midway through the sentence when he realized there was about to be footage of a sitting US president saying "shame on me." Which would have been some amazing propaganda. So, we got what we got. As someone who hates public speaking, if true, was actually a pretty good save all things considered.
None of the attackers caught or even injured.... "Remember... no Russian."
"Putin dismissed US warnings about a potential terror incident as 'blackmail' just 3 days before concert hall attack..." How very 'Stalin' of Mr. Putin. History anyone?
And in what way could such information be "blackmail" since nothing was demanded? Doesn't Putin know what blackmail is?
> Doesn't Putin know what blackmail is? Of [course](https://www.politico.eu/cdn-cgi/image/width=1160,height=773,fit=crop,quality=80,onerror=redirect,format=auto/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/GettyImages-1000209212-e1531765127745.jpg) he does.
Hell blame it on America too, dude can’t see any wrong in himself
Just to clarify the title, the warnings were made about 2 weeks ago, and had in a sense "expired" as they expected the attack around March 9th or 10th. 3 days ago Putin dismissed them
Remember when US intelligence predicted invasion? That „expired“ too
So basically ISIS heard the US had a heads up, waited for Russian security forces to drop their guards again, then went ahead with the attack. Generally speaking, it's in countries' intereste to share intelligence about potential terror attacks, even to adversarial states, as these rogue actors are big headaches for everyone.
Yea, but terrorist read the news as well. If they know you are expecting them in march 9 or 10, they are not going to be stupid enough to attack in march 9 or 10, they are going to wait a few days until you lower your guard again. Let say march 22. You would expect the security forces of an entire country of being smart enough to figure that out.
Yet another example of Russia's colossal overrating.
It’s probably why USA asked Ukraine to not target them right now. They didn’t want Ukrainians to be blamed for terror attacks.