The videos, which were published by IS’s news agency Amaq, showed the gunmen filming themselves as they hunted concertgoers through the lobby of the Crocus City Hall and fired at them from pointblank range, killing scores of people. At one point, one of the gunmen tells another to “kill them and have no mercy”.
Sorry, Vlad. Can’t pin it on Ukraine anymore.
It is an interesting strategy that IS deployed, to delay the release of their videos.
This article then goes on to describe other videos (released from the Russian side, I presume?) that are horribly abhorrent:
Some of the videos of the interrogations suggest that the men were tortured by Russian security services. One of the clips, circulated by Russian bloggers, appears to show members of the security forces cutting off the ear of a man who is later interrogated over the attack and then stuffing it into his mouth. Another appears to show security forces beating a suspect with their rifle butts and kicking him as he lies in the snow.
Russian independent media noted that the officer who apparently cut off the ear of the suspect was wearing patches that indicated his support for neo-Nazi groups and appeared to have contact with the far-right Rusich paramilitary group, which is active in Ukraine. The patches included a black sun and a symbol resembling the Totenkopf – or death’s head – worn by several Nazi divisions.
Given his supposed opposition to Nazism, Putin only had to look for select members of his own population, within his own borders, to find and route out Nazis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusich_Group
EDIT - an afterthought: And President Drink Bleach and his MAGAs support Putin.
Nazism is only bad when it’s a small group in Ukraine with essentially no power. And, of course, Nazis in a country run by a Jewish president allows him to play the antisemitic side too.
One of the clips, circulated by Russian bloggers, appears to show members of the security forces cutting off the ear of a man who is later interrogated over the attack and then stuffing it into his mouth.
I have serious doubts that there’s actual research backing up the idea that this is actually an effective way to get information out of someone.
There’s research that indicates it doesn’t work at all. They’ll just say whatever is needed to make it stop.
“Yes! I’m actually Ukrainian! Zelenskyy and I planned it over lunch!”
An MI-6 agent, a CIA agent, and a KGB agent are all talking, claiming to be the best at finding a target when they need to. So they come up with a competition, where they release a rabbit into a forest and have to track and retrieve it.
The MI-6 agent goes on first, and after a week comes back, accepting failure.
The CIA agent goes next, and after 3 days comes out and declares there is no rabbit, or it escaped into another country.
The Russian agent goes last, and after 6 hours calls the others back to inform that he succeeded.
When the other two agents arrive, they find a bear chained to a chair, badly beaten and bloody, wearing a set of bunny ears and saying “I am a rabbit. I have always been a rabbit. My parents were members of a rabbit group…”
Sorry, Vlad. Can’t pin it on Ukraine anymore.
“Videos show that Ukraine’s terror partner, IS, executed the cowardly act. This proves that Ukraine is a terror state that will stop at nothing to destroy Mother Russia.” – Vladimir Putin or one of his sycophants, probably.
Or the IS video is a deep fake up out by the imperial west to try to cover up the Ukrainian terror attack.
Maybe, if the goal of Ukraine is to risk losing international support just to be able to… kill a few civilians? Sounds like a very risky and convoluted plan to achieve nothing good.
Putin is afraid of ISIS in Afghanistan after Russia consistently lost their asses in Afghanistan for years. Putin is going to pretend ISIS doesn’t exist because he knows he can’t win against them either.
Putin is incapable of defending Russia from an enemy that lives in the stone-age. He does not know what he is doing and needs to be replaced with an actual leader.
They captured all 4 shooters? Alive? Give me a break!
Pretty sure they are on to blaming it on the CIA. I just feel bad for whatever random fall guys they picked up to pin the blame on.
They’re trying hard to blame Ukraine. This undermines that.
Hmm. I don’t know. So, I don’t know if Russia is blaming other parties, but it might not be all that unexpected. Remember earlier in the war, when you had the “firehose of falsehood” strategy playing a larger role? Like, Russia had an information strategy that didn’t have one consistent narrative, but a number of dueling, not-fully-supported narratives.
You’re right to the extent that it means that there isn’t one extra-specially really compelling story, but I think that Russia is probably more-willing to promote competing narratives than any other country that I’m aware of.
It may be that the Kremlin’s real concern is less building support for the conflict with Ukraine, but rather countering political pressures to act strongly against IS right now. IS engaging in glorious jihad is just a headache from the Kremlin’s standpoint that they don’t really want to deal with right now – which, frankly, I can understand, as Russia’s plate is kinda full. If the Kremlin doesn’t respond, then it probably isn’t gonna go over well domestically. If they do, then they gotta use some resources that could be used against Ukraine.
In World War II, US pre-war plans for the event of a concurrent conflict with Nazi Germany and Japan involved deferring war with Japan as long as possible. Japan had very limited ability to really affect the long-term balance of power; one could fight Japan whenever, and in fact it was advantageous to build up a larger naval force first, but Germany had potential to knock over major powers; one wanted to act sooner rather than later there. Politically, Japan attacking the US at Pearl Harbor created a political problem for the US over political pressure to act against Japan rather than Germany (though, in the event, that was resolved in a week when Hitler declared war on the US for his own reasons).
My guess is that the Kremlin likely doesn’t really want to deal with Russians outraged over Moscow being kicked in the teeth and pushing for action now. All else held equal, the Kremlin probably does want to act against IS…just not to prioritize it relative to Ukraine.
Some of the videos of the interrogations suggest that the men were tortured by Russian security services. One of the clips, circulated by Russian bloggers, appears to show members of the security forces cutting off the ear of a man who is later interrogated over the attack and then stuffing it into his mouth. Another appears to show security forces beating a suspect with their rifle butts and kicking him as he lies in the snow.
Oh buddy this is just the tip of the ice berg. The pain they have coming to them will be beyond next level.
One of them was beaten until his eye fell out, then they cut off his genitals, and had doctors patch him up and install a catheter so more can come his way. It’s not gonna be pretty and these guys will also get no mercy.
That’s OK, he’ll pay some people to take some hostages then wipe them and the hostages out to the last man, just to show how serious he can be.
