ANALYST NOTES - 6/24/2024: Dagestani Terror: Is Russia Taking Its Eye Off the Ball?

     On the 23rd of June, 2024, multiple coordinated terror attacks rippled across the Russian Republic of Dagestan, targeting Christian and Jewish worship centers with small arms, resulting in the death of 15 policemen, and the symbolic beheading of a Russian Orthodox priest. Responsibility for the attack has already been claimed by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (AKA ISIS-K or ISIS-KP). The Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin was one of two churches attacked on Pentecost Sunday, one of the holiest days of the church calendar, and the “birthday” of the Christian Church.

     While the violence on Sunday is certainly horrifying, it is hardly the first or worst attack in Russian territory in the last few months. On March 22nd of this year, the Crocus City Music Hall in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, was attacked by small arms fire, incendiary devices and knife-wielding militants. As was done this Sunday, ISIS-KP claimed responsibility via Amaq News Agency, the IS news affiliate prominent on X/Twitter and Telegram. That attack claimed 145 lives and wounded hundreds more.

     So then, with mounting tensions both in the heart of Russia as well as in the outer reaches of its sovereign control, the question becomes: Is Russia taking its eye off the ball? Certainly it shows that Russia is overextended in Ukraine, that it is in the crosshairs of the Islamic State, and that it is fundamentally unstable in a way we have not seen since the war in Chechnya at the end of the 1990s. This means that businesses with commerce in Russia should exercise caution, but it does not mean their investments are as unstable as they would be in a “failed state” like Dagestan itself. Additionally, this instability casts doubts upon the bullish optimism regarding the BRICS economic alliance challenging the dominance of the US-led financial sector. With three fifths of the countries of Brazil, Russia, Iran*, China, and South Africa in financial and geopolitical turmoil, it is safe to say that while Russia is no paper tiger, it is certainly a bear.

     *Traditionally the I in BRICS is thought to refer to India, in recent years with the JCPOA, Iran has been growing in importance in the anti-dollar economic alliance.

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