The Peanut Gallery: Slaughter in Moscow as Armed Gunmen Murder 40 - ISIS Claims Responsibility, Offers Zero Proof
March 22, 2024
Welcome to the Peanut Gallery! Today's Friday, I’m tired, so expect a more freeform sort of chat. I'll cover everything I miss tomorrow.
Please remember that I know nothing.
I honestly don’t know where to begin. Terrorism, I suppose? Let’s start with terrorism.
This Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for a mass shooting and bombing at a concert venue in the suburbs of Moscow on the evening of March 22. Russian authorities reported that three to five attackers in camouflage opened fire with automatic weapons and detonated explosives during an event at the “Crocus City Hall” concert venue in Krasnogorsk on the northwestern outskirts of Moscow City, killing at least 40 and injuring at least 100.
I think we should all observe a moment of silence for the forty lives lost...
My condolences. Sincerely. I live in America, and mass-shootings are an ever-present nightmare. I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.
ISW says there were four-to-five involved, meaning this was not a lone-wolf scenario. Something like this involves planning, coordination, and teamwork. ISIS claims responsibility...and I’m inclined to give it to them. A few weeks back ISW mentioned the FSB hit an ISIS cell in Moscow. At the time I’d laughed it off—thinking it was just a Kremlin excuse to conscript a bunch of migrants. Looks like I was incorrect. If the two of these events are related, then it implies there were multiple teams. If there were multiple teams then the attack were externally coordinated, likely on a state (or global terrorist organization) level. When the first team went down, they sent in a backup.
Could ISIS have pulled this off? I mean...maybe? Probably? Honestly it feels like a bit of a stretch...but it’s in the world of possibility. Likely, even. It would certainly explain why the United States informed the Kremlin of the attack three days ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if we compromised ISIS communications.
On the other hand, I saw a “fun” theory popping around saying the Kremlin did attacked the theater as a false flag to justify a Second Wave of Mobilization. A sort of, ‘Here’s a wakeup call, Moscow,’ kind of message. Anyone at that concert hall was Russian upper-middle class—think the kind of Russian who wear a designer tracksuit.
What is a designer tracksuit you might ask? Think: ‘Rufarious Ivan Presents: Nouveau Riche’ and it’s just a pair of Adidas sweatpants with the stitching on the logo replaced
.
They’re are just the sorts of people Putin intends to raise taxes on. By scaring the piss out of anyone who picks up a newspaper or turns on a television, Putin simultaneously justifies his totalitarianism and enables further oppression. People either believe it’s ISIS and unite to repel the foreign threat, or they recognize FSB agents behind those masks and spend the rest of their lives terrified.
And now Putin has the excuse he needs to broaden mobilization, combined with a ready narrative to justify it.
Russian authorities reportedly intend to significantly expand crypto-mobilization efforts starting in Spring 2024 amid reports about significant decreases in the number of voluntary recruits. Russian opposition outlet Verstka reported on March 22 that high-ranking sources from the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), presidential administration, and regional governments stated that the Russian MoD plans to increase force generation starting in the spring and that Russia may intend to generate an additional 300,000 personnel within an unspecified time frame.
Nah, that ain’t all. Keep it coming, ISW.
Verstka reported that employees of the military recruitment center in Moscow indicated that the pace of Russian voluntary recruitment “dropped sharply” starting in October 2023 with the number of visitors to the Unified Contract Hiring Center in Moscow decreasing from 500-600 per day to 20-30 per day.
First, caveats: yes, it is one recruitment center in Moscow, and yes, at the time the Avdiivka offensive was in full meatgrinder phase. Reports of swarms of ravenous rats feeding on uncollected dead tends to put a damper on recruitment.
But can we just talk about that 95% drop in daily foot traffic? And in Moscow—the heart of the empire and the flagship center. If any recruitment office was going to be nice and efficient, it was going to be the one a block or two away from Putin’s office. If this one’s seeing such a drop-off, I can only imagine what’s happening everywhere else.
Russian authorities continue to militarize children in occupied Ukraine as part of efforts to Russify Ukrainian children and create a resource for Russia’s future force generation needs. (..) Russian authorities have approved the creation of the Luhansk Cadet Corps under the Russian Investigative Committee (Russia’s rough equivalent to the American Federal Bureau of Investigation), possibly before 2025.[61] Lysohor stated that Luhansk Cadet Corps will teach Ukrainian children about pro-Russian concepts including their “debt” to the Russian “Motherland.”
Please give Ukraine what they need to bring this war to an end.
‘Q’ for the Community:
What are your thoughts on the Moscow mass shooting?
Join the conversation of on /r/TheNuttySpectacle!