Moscow attack a blow to Russia, but won’t slow its war on Ukraine

Kremlin has tried to blame Kyiv for the terrorist attack, perhaps to divert difficult questions over why Russia’s security services failed to prevent it
With Russia likely to step up its war effort, the conflict is shaping up to be a war of attribution, the outcome of which remains highly unpredictable

Andrew Hammond

Published: 6:30pm, 26 Mar 2024

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Vladimir Putin recently won a new six-year presidential term, until 2030, by which time he will have led Russia longer than Joseph Stalin. However, Putin’s celebrations were cut short by last weekend’s horrific attack on a Moscow concert hall, which could now have implications for the Ukraine war.

This was the worst terrorist attack on Moscow in decades, highlighting yet again the vulnerabilities of the Russian central state, especially as key security resources are diverted to Ukraine. It shows how the regime’s grip on power is seemingly a mile wide, but sometimes only inches thick.

This is the second time in less than a year that its weakness has been exposed, following last summer’s mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries. That episode showed the fissures within the security services and military intelligence over the trajectory of the Ukraine war.

Similarly, the Moscow concert hall attack suggests that even though Russia now appears to be in a significantly stronger position in Ukraine than last summer, the regime may still in fact be fragile. This is despite Putin’s extraordinary political longevity for a quarter of the century.

Last weekend’s tragedy is a sharp blow to the regime, coming so swiftly after Putin’s election win. The Russian president is fast becoming one of the longest-serving world leaders of modern times, alongside Fidel Castro, who managed 49 years as Cuban premier and then president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian supreme leader since 1989.

Islamic State Khorasan (Isis-K), the affiliate of terrorist group Isis in Afghanistan, has been linked to last weekend’s attack, in which armed individuals opened fire on concertgoers at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall. Isis-K has been fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, which it regards as insufficiently militant.

02:31

Russia charges 4 men with terrorism after more than 130 killed in Moscow concert attack

According to some reports, more foreign fighters have joined Isis from the former Soviet republics than any other region. Some of the perpetrators of last weekend’s attack are apparently radicalised citizens of Tajikistan.

The Moscow concert hall attack, in which at least 137 people died, raises troubling questions about the ability of the Russian security apparatus to prevent such deadly attacks, given that in this case, its Western counterparts had issued warnings.

Russian special forces are thinner on the ground in Moscow, and even some police have been deployed to the front line of the Ukraine war. So a relatively small number of terrorists was able to cause deadly chaos, and it reportedly took national guard troops more than an hour to arrive from their base only two miles away.

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Isis has released a photograph of what it said were the four attackers, as well as footage from the attack. However, Putin has linked the attack to Kyiv, saying the terrorists “tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them from the Ukrainian side to cross the state border”. He also likened the attackers to “Nazis”, his oft-used code for Ukrainians.

At least part of the Kremlin’s motivation for laying blame on Kyiv could be the need to divert difficult questions over why Russia’s security services failed to take more seriously the Western warnings of an attack. However, there is also a significant possibility that Putin will now use the terrorist attack to double down on Russian war efforts in Ukraine.

Even before the Moscow concert hall attack, there were signs that Russia was shifting gears on Ukraine. For instance, the Kremlin for the first time declared that the nation is at “war” with Ukraine, rather than undertaking a “special military operation”.

The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk, also warned last Friday that Moscow has plans to build a new force of 100,000 troops for a potential new offensive. This follows a period of sustained Russian battlefield gains, including Avdiivka in February.

Presuming the Russian war efforts continue apace, the most likely scenario in coming weeks is a continued war of attrition. However, one key difference from 2023 is that it is Moscow making gains on the ground in 2024, rather than Ukraine. A war of attrition seems most likely while both sides are still prepared to expend massive resources, although Ukraine’s ability to match Russia depends on an uptick in Western financial support.

While this war of attrition may imply a degree of stability in the conflict, this is not necessarily true, and the level and range of risks actually remain high. This is one reason why the outcome of the war remains unpredictable.

Given the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) of the situation, more significant surprises may yet come. This includes the possibility of major nuclear incidents of some kind – for example, “accidents” at nuclear energy sites.

So the conflict will probably last for at least many more months. Even in the most positive scenario for peace, with major fighting ending in 2024 or 2025, there will probably be periodic tensions between Russia and Ukraine for much longer.

Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics