Russia’s top security agency, the Federal Security Service, says there are dead and wounded in a Moscow concert hall that is ablaze amid a shooting by several gunmen.
This doesn't seem to have the trappings of a false-flag operation, or that of Kyiv, so perhaps this is an honest-to-goodness sign of revolution against that gay clown Putin? hopefully!
at the time I commented it had like 14 upvotes and 0 downvotes, now it's at 15 upvotes and 14 downvotes, my comment got 2 downvotes like 5 minutes after posting it, but now it also has 5 upvotes.
Looks like it just took some time for the better part of lemmy to get to this post.
The best way to tell if it's a false flag operation is to see how much this event will be spread in the Russian media.
They've lost tons of equipment and had bombings deep in Russian territory, mostly affecting their oil production which could be perceived locally as Russian military inferiority.
So when this starts being on blast for every channel and frequency - you can be sure it's a false flag.
If they bury this like any other Russian military failing, then it's probably real.
Edit: ISIS claims responsibility, but Russia is still trying to blame Ukraine, which is kind of a false flag?
So when this starts being on blast for every channel and frequency - you can be sure it's a false flag.
Maybe, maybe not.
Regardless of who is actually responsible, and regardless of who claims responsibility, it could be used as propaganda against pretty much anyone the Kremlin is grumpy about.
Navalney supporters or Ukraine are some pretty obvious potential scapegoats.
He’s been in power for a long time but he’s run an authoritarian regime. He relies on the suppression of a depoliticized majority of the population. The idea here is that he wants to make a move towards totalitarianism: mobilize more of the population towards the war effort. Squeeze those depoliticized folks to force them to declare their loyalty to the regime.
Yes - but why did he let it happen? I'm thinking more that Putin willfully neglected any action against it because (reason). Maybe he wants to mobilise more and wants people to feel like they're under attack?
I don’t know, why did Bush let 9/11 happen? This is wild speculation one day after the attack with practically no reliable information to work with. The English speaking world has decided that Putin is a cartoon villian or the new Hitler, so sinister conspiracy theories abound.
Nevermind the Reichstag, remember that the FSB and likely Putin were behind the bombing of four apartment blocks in Russia in 1999 that killed over 300 people. It got blamed on the Chechens and was used to justify the invasion of Chechnya.
This wouldn't even be the bloodiest false flag Putin has done in his career.
9/11 did give Bush a pretext for the Patriot Act though, and his own presidency was not in question at the time.
To be clear I don't think that Bush did 9/11 and don't know who did this shooting. Just pointing out that Putin absolutely can benefit from it politically.
Why shoot up a public concert hall if your enemy is Putin and not the general public.
Why do any extremists - or russia, the US or israel for that matter - target violence towards civilians?
Maybe they believe the cause is worth it, the tactical calculus still comes out in their favour, or they just hate all russians? General destabilization? Forcing the state to devote more resources to protecting soft civilian infrastructure. Making people feel unsafe. Inspiring similar atrocities. The logic of tactically deploying murder isn't always clear to an outsider, especially before we have a firm idea who did this.
I strongly doubt this is an "honest-to-goodness sign of revolution". Shooting concert-goers is obviously not that. But I don't think it's logically sound to rule out an anti-putin motivation just because civilians were killed.
Because a couple dudes with small arms can't be effective by attacking the Russian military or police forces head-on. Instead they choose to attack soft targets and maximize the social disruption and impact by terrorizing citizens.
I would normally say it seems like a convenient false flag if they could pin it on Ukraine or something, but it sounds like several sources have confirmed ISIS is claiming responsibility.