[Goose]

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1771235426474299471?s=20

Not directly Ukraine related, but you wonder whether if Russia's attention had not been focused on pointless war invading a neighbor that posed no threat whether they might have been able to thwart this terrorist attack... that the US warned them about.

BC

Probably they discount anything we say as either a "provocation" or a political ploy. That said, Russia has never been particularly good at responding rapidly to a novel threat. Once they realize ISIS is actually a problem for them too, they will utilize massive overkill against it, probably making more new terrorists than they eliminate. Given how much labor they import from the 'stans, there are plenty of ready bodies to perform terrorist actions if provoked (or maybe if just "radicalized"). Chechnya is still sitting their like a dormant volcano ready to erupt again as well. Not all "sweetness and light" in the Russian Federation these days.

Has Russia in its history ever achieved a period of "sweetness and light' that wasn't achieved with the boot of a dictator on the necks of the populace?

Not that I am aware of. It was pretty much Tsars to General Secretaries of the CCP to Putin. However, it is true that internal security (and repression) varied considerably by time and place. Internal disorder did break out, and sometimes had to be appeased. The few years of ostensible "democracy" were rendered hopeless by the necessity to clean up the existing messes in a population that trusted nobody.

[Goose]

https://x.com/RALee85/status/1771235426474299471?s=20

Not directly Ukraine related, but you wonder whether if Russia's attention had not been focused on pointless war invading a neighbor that posed no threat whether they might have been able to thwart this terrorist attack... that the US warned them about.

BC

Probably they discount anything we say as either a "provocation" or a political ploy. That said, Russia has never been particularly good at responding rapidly to a novel threat. Once they realize ISIS is actually a problem for them too, they will utilize massive overkill against it, probably making more new terrorists than they eliminate. Given how much labor they import from the 'stans, there are plenty of ready bodies to perform terrorist actions if provoked (or maybe if just "radicalized"). Chechnya is still sitting their like a dormant volcano ready to erupt again as well. Not all "sweetness and light" in the Russian Federation these days.

Has Russia in its history ever achieved a period of "sweetness and light' that wasn't achieved with the boot of a dictator on the necks of the populace?

Not that I am aware of. It was pretty much Tsars to General Secretaries of the CCP to Putin. However, it is true that internal security (and repression) varied considerably by time and place. Internal disorder did break out, and sometimes had to be appeased. The few years of ostensible "democracy" were rendered hopeless by the necessity to clean up the existing messes in a population that trusted nobody.