Murder on the Nevsky Express

On Friday, as more than 650 people —including a significant number of government officials — were traveling to St. Petersburg from Moscow, the Nevsky Express luxury train was bombed, killing 26 people and wounding more than 100. Most frightening is that this might not be an isolated terrorist act but the start of a series of attacks.

One of the most striking features of this incident is how Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made no public comments for two days after it happened. Putin — who likes to display his strength by posing shirtless while on vacation — shows a conspicuous lack of strength after terrorist attacks occur in Russia. Usually, he remains silent. Remember how he kept silent during the Dubrovka theater siege and the terrorist attack on Beslan School No. 1.

The Wahhabists are one group suspected in the Nevsky Express bombing. After Yunus-Bek Yevkurov replaced Murat Zyazikov as president of Ingushetia in October 2008, he denied Islamists their safe havens and strongholds in the republic. This sent the insurgents on the offensive, resulting in a string of terrorist attacks in the region: the suicide bombing of police headquarters in Nazran, an assassination attempt against Yevkurov, the murder of Dagestani Interior Minister Adelgirei Mogamedtagirev and the attempted assassination of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

The chaos and lawlessness has led to a sharp increase in the number of insurgents. To make matters worse, federal officials and siloviki who are ostensibly battling extremism are directly subsidizing the terror using money stolen from the national budget to pay for their personal safety. According to Ruslanbek Zyazikov, Murat Zyazikov’s cousin and former head of personal security when he was president, in Ingushetia alone the president’s relatives paid Wahabbists 30 million rubles (roughly $1 million) every month in protection money.

The Wahhabists until recently were only a marginal force in the Caucasus, but they have gained enough power to demand protection money from the federal budget and the business community.

Sooner or later, the extremists were bound to realize that it is far cheaper and simpler to place a bomb on a remote stretch of railway near Tver than to try to kill Yevkurov or Kadyrov with suicide bombers.

The other, but less likely, possible group behind the train bombing are fascists. After Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgenia Khasis were arrested on murder charges in the deaths of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, it turned out that the suspects had close ties to Russian Image and Russian Verdict, two radical nationalist organizations that have been inspired by the conservative Kremlin ideology known as “managed nationalism.” But managed nationalism, the brainchild of Vladislav Surkov, President Dmitry Medvedev’s first deputy chief of staff, turned out to be completely unmanageable. Surkov’s ideological project has inspired radical groups to commit violent acts, the latest incident being the shooting death of anti-fascist activist Ivan Khutorskoi on Nov. 16.

Whether it was the Wahhabists or the fascists who committed the train bombing, this demonstrates a complete loss of control in the country and a collapse of government authority. The collapse in Russia’s law enforcement structure, in particular, has become so bad that it is just as easy for terrorists to commit an attack as it is for a disgruntled police officer to shoot shoppers in a supermarket.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.