Vaunted $2B 'Ring of Steel' security cordon of
100,000+ troops/officers may be too little, too late...
With the start of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games at Sochi starting two weeks from today (Feb 7), the terrorist threats keep coming... the Americans are preparing for the worst... and they still haven't found the Black Widows...
On the bright side, Simon Saradzhyan -a research fellow in science and international affairs at Harvard- told the Boston Globe now that Putin's 5x25 mile 'Ring of Steel' has been deployed, any potential terrorists would have great difficulty in moving explosives/weaponry past security checkpoints and into Sochi, making substantial attacks (i.e. the 2002 raid on a Moscow theater in which more than 900 hostages were held) fairly unlikely.
"I foresee no strong possibility of major terrorist attack that would require mass evacuation, like a mass hostage taking or a series of hostage-takings," he said. They simply wouldn't be able to muster the men and materials necessary anywhere near the Olympic venues, unless they'd somehow previously hidden a substantial amount force somewhere inside the town.
However -Saradzhyan said- there remains the distinct possibility that would-be terrorists have already planted bombs in the shining, new facilities during their construction... or "people have moved into the city long ago and are just biding their time waiting for the right time to strike."
Another problem with the Russians is a general lack of communication -and trust- between the vast country's numerous overlapping armed forces, police, and other security/intelligence organizations.
I guess all we can do is kick-back and hope for the best... the Kremlin's not willing to accept any help or advice, and playing defense with terrorism is
always a dreary proposition.
But one of the pillars of Vladimir Putin's domestic support is his reputation as a 'slayer of terrorists' who 'keeps us safe'... and any embarrassment at his $51B prestige project at Sochi would likely do serious damage to that reputation, undermining Putin's power and emboldening the Russian opposition...
"I foresee no strong possibility of major terrorist attack that would require mass evacuation, like a mass hostage taking or a series of hostage-takings," he said. They simply wouldn't be able to muster the men and materials necessary anywhere near the Olympic venues, unless they'd somehow previously hidden a substantial amount force somewhere inside the town.
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| Chechen-Islamist Doku Umarov -who called for attacks at Sochi 2014- said to be 'eliminated' just last week by Russian security services |
Another problem with the Russians is a general lack of communication -and trust- between the vast country's numerous overlapping armed forces, police, and other security/intelligence organizations.
I guess all we can do is kick-back and hope for the best... the Kremlin's not willing to accept any help or advice, and playing defense with terrorism is
always a dreary proposition.
But one of the pillars of Vladimir Putin's domestic support is his reputation as a 'slayer of terrorists' who 'keeps us safe'... and any embarrassment at his $51B prestige project at Sochi would likely do serious damage to that reputation, undermining Putin's power and emboldening the Russian opposition...