Monday, August 14, 2006

Moscow's New Indifference in the War on Terror

In EDM, Pavel K.Baev writes about Moscow's gradually shifting foreign policy, which is now in the process of "wrapping up" Russia's war on terror, and becoming indifferent to the anxieties and sufferings of the West:
The outstanding success of the British secret services in foiling a terrorist plot that could have claimed hundreds of lives did not fail to make headlines in the Russian media. Newspapers emphasized particularly the fact that all detained suspects were young Muslims of Pakistani origin born in the UK and noted that this network had been penetrated by undercover agents and carefully monitored for many months (Rossiiskaya gazeta; Izvestiya; Vedomosti, August 11). There was, however, a distinctive tone of indifference to the mainstream commentary. It was the chaos in Heathrow and other British airports that received the most extensive coverage, including the plight of a group of Russian school children who had missed their scheduled flight (Lenta.ru, August 10). The broadly held perception is that, except for these interruptions in commuting to London, the crisis is not particularly relevant to Russia.
The article notes that counter-terrorism, which has become the "trademark" of the Putin regime, is being decommissioned:
Apparently, the Kremlin has decided that the usefulness of this topic has been exhausted and a more flexible line would be more appropriate for the period of “peace and prosperity” that is planned to culminate in the transfer of power to a new hand-picked successor (Gazeta.ru, August 7).

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