The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Terror Attack at Concert Hall in Moscow Suburb || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Late evening on Friday, March 22 local time, three gunman attacked a concert venue in a Moscow suburb, setting it ablaze and killing an as-yet-unknown number of civilians. Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/terror-attack-at-concert-hall-in-moscow-suburb

Hey, everyone, Peter Zine here coming to you from Colorado. There's been terror attack in Moscow at a conference venue. Definitely shots fired. At least three gunmen and the facility itself is a blaze. We don't know who did it. We don't know if the gunmen got away yet. And we don't know how many people have been killed. But lots of automatic gunfire.

Two possibilities here. The first possibility is that it is three Ukrainians or people acting on behalf of the Ukrainians, which would obviously be bad for the Ukrainians from any number of political. and PR points of view. It would also be very atypical. The Ukrainians have never made an effort of targeting individuals that are not specifically involved with the Russian war effort in some way. So it would be unlikely independent of the fact that it would be very counterproductive. The Ukrainians have been going after pieces of infrastructure and logistics and policy makers, not concert goers. Second, if it's not the Ukrainians, the list of who else could have been

interested in an attack like this is very long. Russia is a multi-ethnic empire, and it survives by expanding, absorbing a lot of minorities, shooting them through with intelligence professionals to keep them under control, and then expanding again. And so there are a dozen major minorities and dozens of minor ones throughout the Russian state who do not exactly enjoy being cannon fodder in the Russian system's wars. Also, ever since the Russians opened up the Ukraine war, the intelligence services have been focused primarily on preventing domestic opposition among ethnic Russians, as well as oppressing the Ukrainians who have been conquered in Ukraine proper. That has really stretched them thin in monitoring all of the other ethnic groups who have had resentment bubble up from time to time.

The top of the list of the Chechens. And while the Chechens under Razman Kandirov has basically oppressed his own people as part of his deal with the Russians, no one expects for a second that Kadyerov wouldn't go his own way if he sensed weakness on the part of the Russian government. Not to mention there are a number of factions within Chechen society who are opposed to the current setup completely. This is much more in line with the way the Chechens have fought Russian power in the past than anything the Ukrainians have done. Regardless of who did this, this is really bad for Russian control. Because as I mentioned, the FSB and the intelligence agencies have been stretched thin, trying to provide a veneer of stability. In fact, Putin just got off of his manufactured election win just earlier this week.

And so this is a big FU to everything that Putin has been trying to achieve, at least in terms of outward appearances. As we know more, I will of course report back to you, but that's where we stand at the moment.