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Reuters Pedestrians cross Putin Prospect, one of the main streets in the
Chechen capital Grozny on April 20. |
LONDON — Russian commentators are speculating that a Chechen connection in the Boston Marathon bombings will force the United States to reassess its view of the Kremlin’s actions in the troubled Caucasus region.
After the capture on Friday night of Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the second suspect in Monday’s attack, following the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, his brother, in a gun battle with police, U.S. authorities have yet to establish a motive for the crime.
In Russia, as in the United States, attention focused on whether the bombings were connected with the politics of Chechnya, where the brothers’ family originated.
Reuters Pedestrians cross Putin Prospect, one of the main streets in the Chechen capital Grozny on April 20.
The possibility of such a connection being established is already raising questions about what it means for the recently strained relationship between Moscow and Washington.“Russia has long warned the Americans that flirting with various separatist and terrorist organizations of the North Caucasus would not lead to anything good,” Sergei Mikheyev, a political analyst, told the Pravda news Web site.
Looking back to Russia’s two military campaigns against Chechen separatists in the 1990s, Mr. Mikheyev said, “It is an open secret that separatists enjoyed the support from external forces for quite a long period of time, including the Americans and their allies from other countries.”
Despite the Russian commentariat’s reaction, there has been no suggestion that the brothers had anything to do with groups operating from Chechnya, even if the woes of their native Caucasus region animated their motives in some way — which has also not been established.
Nonetheless, Russia Today — a broadcaster seen as close to the Kremlin — said the suspects’ Chechen connection had already led the U.S. establishment “to perform a rapid volte-face towards the previously sympathetically-viewed region and cause.”
“The standard U.S. portrayal of the restive region focused on the David and Goliath scale of the adversaries, the ‘denial’ to Chechens of their right to self-determination, and the abuse of human rights,” according to RT.
Echoing longstanding complaints of Western double standards toward what Russia regards as its own war on terror, RT concluded, “It is one thing to castigate a nation overseas for its approach to terrorism, but it is something else to encounter it face to face, when citizens of your own country die in acts of calculated violence.”
The reaction reflected what Clifford J. Levy, the former Moscow bureau chief of The New York Times, described as a “we told you so” attitude on the part of the Russians.
“They have complained for a long time that the West doesn’t appreciate how difficult it has been for them to put down what they refer to as terrorism,” Levy told Marcus Mabry, Rendezous’s editor.
Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency stressed there was no evidence so far linking the suspects to any established terror network. “But in piecing together their personal motivation, the metastasizing violence plaguing the North Caucasus over the past two decades may be a piece of the puzzle.”
The Kremlin said on Saturday that the United States and Russia might cooperate on the investigation into the Boston bombings if the suspects’ ties to Russia were confirmed.
“As all the circumstances and details get cleared, I think, our intelligence agencies will be in contact,” Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman, told Rossia 24 TV.
His comments followed a Friday evening call in which President Obama thanked Mr. Putin for unspecified cooperation in the investigation so far.
Mr. Putin first offered Russia’s help on Tuesday when he condemned the Boston attack as a barbarous crime and expressed the view that the fight against terrorism required the active coordination of efforts from the global community.
The exchanges on the Boston attack came at a time of otherwise strained relations between Moscow and Washington, focusing on their differences over how to respond to events in Syria, and U.S. concerns about the Kremlin’s treatment of its opponents.
As the investigation into the brothers and their motives continues, the Kremlin might choose to stress a connection between the Islamist threat from the Caucasus and that posed by Islamist factions in Syria fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, in order to justify its continued support of him.
