Dear Readers:
Today I have this piece by reporter/analyst Nikolai Storozhenko. Who gives, in my opinion, the best and most plausible explanation why Ukrainian Secret Services would waste their time and valuable resources committing petty terrorist acts such as the murder of Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky. For those not familiar with the backstory: Tatarsky (that was his pen name, his real name was Maxim Fomin) was killed, along with dozens of others (a minimum of 25 people, killed and maimed, the numbers are still coming in) in a terrorist bomb explosion this past Sunday, April 2. Tatarsky was hosting a “creative evening” (poetry, songs, speeches, etc.) in the “Street Bar” cafe right in the center of St. Petersburg when the bomb went off. [yalensis: If I am not mistaken, I think I have actually been inside that cafe myself, during my last trip to St. Pete.] I won’t go into the “true crime” aspects just yet, except to say that the investigation is still underway, some arrests have been made. From all preliminary indications, it seems pretty certain that the Ukrainian secret services were behind the attack. Using local Russian assets to commit the actual deed. For readers interested in following the crime itself, and the investigation, there is plenty of news, in both Russophilic and Russophobic press.
However, my major thrust in today’s story is not the “how” but the “why” of this particular crime.
But first a couple of words about the “Concern Trolls” flooding the blogosphere. This always happens after every terrorist attack against Russia or Russians. The trolls wail, “Why wasn’t there more security?” “How could this happen?!” “The Russian security forces are impotent!” In reality, reasonable people know that it is simply not possible to avert every terrorist act of this nature. Of course, measures can be taken to beef up security and mitigate risk; but realistically, there is no way to prevent every act of individual terrorism, when the terrorist is ideologically determined. This was a public cafe. The event was announced in advance, and everyone was invited. People were free to come and go, nobody searched their persons or bags. Is every cafe in Russia expected to have X-ray screening at the entrance, bomb-sniffing dogs lurching on every client? Is every shopping mall in the United States expected to have metal-screening and full-body scans at the entrance to detect potential mass shooters? Just to ask the question is to expose the ludicrousness and fake sympathy of the trolls.
The Russian people know all of this, by the way. They endured many years and decades of NATO-sponsored Islamist terrorism, directed at ordinary Russians. They know that the Western goal is not just to harm and terrorize them, but also to teach them contempt for their own government, when it proves impotent to protect them from every attack. They know all this, and they shrug. They know that nothing much can be done, except to endure and to prevail. Just as it took years and decades to hunt down and destroy the various Islamist terrorist cells, so now it will take years (hopefully not decades) to root out, within Russia itself, the various pro-Ukrainian Bandera terror cells. Which, in all likelihood, the NATO forces have been installing, training, and curating over the past 30 years.
Which brings me to Storozhenko’s thesis. He does not even believe that the main goal here was to psychologically work over the Russian public, which is long inured to these kinds of random attacks and has developed coping mechanisms. He believes the main goal is to buck up and bolster the Ukrainian public. To give them at least one moment of euphoria, to help keep them going in this awful war. Let us follow his reasoning, because I believe that his logic is spot on. All one has to do is glance at the pro-Ukraine internet (including the mainstream media) to see how much glee these killings inspire. They are like a drug, and the pro-Ukes just can’t get enough of it.
Storozhenko: The explosion brought about the predictable resonance in Russian society. Which is one of the reasons why these attacks are done in the first place. “We have long hands.” “We can get to you even in St. Petersburg.” The Ukrainian blogosphere is already buzzing with these boasts. […]
It is already a banal truism that Ukraine is a state that sponsors terrorism. We have seen numerous examples of terror acts directed against provisional government officials in the new regions of the Russian Federation (especially in Kherson and Zaporozhie). Also numerous are cases of averted terrorist acts, about which the public is not even aware. But we only need to look at examples like Alexander Zakharchenko (DPR head), Givi and Motorola in Donetsk. Not to mention the assassination of Ukrainian writer Oles Buzina and Russian journalist Darya Dugina this past autumn. […]
But why is all of this killing necessary? You can blow up one or two or three military journalists, but you won’t kill off military journalism itself. To be sure, the Ukrainian special services do sow anxiety into the thoughts and souls of Russian citizens, when they kill off the best and brightest. But that is just a side benefit. The intended audience for these murders is not in Russia, but in the Ukraine itself. All of this is a spectacle for the benefit of the Ukrainian public.
Literally just a few days ago, Kiev propagandist Alexei Arestovich confessed to lying knowingly to his fellow Ukrainian citizens, hiding from them the truth about the war and trying to bolster their spirits: “It was necessary to hold the country together,” Arestovich explained, with typical self-augmentation of his own importance in this process. “Our nation [at the beginning of the war] was hanging by a thread, and it was necessary to keep that thread from breaking. I had a choice: I could either tell the truth [about the dire situation], or I could come up with my famous slogan of 2-3 weeks maximum before help arrived. Without that [benign lie] millions of our people would have simply panicked and lost their minds, our nation would have lost its will to resist.”
Along those lines: All of these murders, these thunderous terrorist actions, such as the Kerch Bridge, all of this is part of this “two-three weeks” philosophy.
[yalensis: Americans might call this psychological technique the “one day at a time” methodology. Just keep plugging on and get through the day, then the next day, etc., somehow withstanding adversity and dealing with obstacles as they occur. It’s actually sound psychology, and a good way to get through a tough time, but not when it entails blowing up other people just to make yourself feel better.]
Storozhenko: The shelling of Russian border towns is also part of this mentality. Representatives of the Kiev regime want people to know: Yes, we are muddling along in the second year already, and there is no end in sight. For sure, we have lost a lot, and hope is dwindling. But wait! you see we have killed Vladlen Tatarsky. And just wait until tomorrow, we’ll get somebody else.
yalensis: And so the pro-Ukrainians are given a reason to resist and withstand one more day, maybe tomorrow some other nice thing will happen, they will learn of the death of another enemy and have something else to rejoice; and this is how they console themselves, make themselves feel better, a moment of euphoria here and there, like a little drug that only lasts a bit, so they will need more soon. But anything, just to keep on keeping on…
Just get through a couple more weeks, keep your chin up, take the small wins, Steiner’s army is on the way, and the Promised Land is nigh…
Awful Avalanche 
It is sad that terrorist attacks killing many random people in addition to a public persona target “keeps Ukie sprits up”. Are you sure the intended audience is not NATO? I get the sense that arming mad dogs is regarded by NATO the most cost effective approach, and terrorist acts demonstrates that Ukanistan have not run out of mad dogs.
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You raise a good point, countrumford. I have read a lot of reports indicating that the NATO leadership, at the start of the war, was split. Half of them actually believed that Ukraine could win a traditional war against Russia. The other half thought the war would be over in 3 weeks (with a Ukrainian loss, of course), and they were already organizing their Plan B. Which was to arm and fund a counter-insurgency similar to the ones that the Banderites conducted after WWII and up into the 1950’s.
Of course, something could be 2 things at the same time. And isn’t that what counter-insurgencies do? The guerrillas will blow something up or assassinate somebody, for example, and then their side can cheer and be bucked up by every little success.
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2 more weeks is probably the most evil action of Kiev and the US/UK backers of this century. Probably an extra 150k Ukrainian dead as a result of this failure to take responsibility and stop the self-carnage. And similar numbers seriously wounded.
OK a second trillion was wasted on Afghanistan, much of it for the corrupt kickbacks to Washington. It killed similar numbers but at least one can argue that over half were not on “our side”. In Ukraine they are killing “our own side”.
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Agree that the Kiev regime was highly irresponsible not to end the war as soon as possible, by taking the offered Russian peace deal. In their excuse, they say it’s an “existential” war, so must be fought to the last Ukrainian. Just like the Great Patriotic War was existential for the Soviet Union.
But the two wars are apples and oranges. If the Soviets had lost, then all the Soviet peoples would have been physically exterminated; not just the government. Therefore, the “hang on for 2 more weeks” approach was appropriate in that situation.
Whereas, the physical existence of the Ukrainian people was never at stake; only the existence of the regime. So, for the regime, yes, it’s existential NOW even if it wasn’t before. But after Russia wins the war, the Ukrainian people themselves will survive, along with their language and culture. Nobody is planning to exterminate them. They are just exterminating themselves.
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Dunno Y, this whole war in Ukrainia got it’s start with the shelling of Russian civilians at the behest of DC & London “thought leaders”. The 3LAs of DC/London have used terrorism for decades, in South/Central-America, in the Middle-East, in Indonesia…it’s kinda their thing, their “clever” way to achieve victory “on the cheap”.
And it does work, so long as the victim country has no back-up. Sadly for the world, like a “one trick pony” these US & English secret-agencies don’t understand why their strategy works in one place and yet fails so often in others. I’d mention it here but, I have coffee to drink, a daily grind of work to do and…I don’t want to support “state-sponsored-terrorism”. DC & London’s 3LAs can do Satan’s work without my help.
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SouthFront today posted a wealth of information on the suspect in this assassination. Though I don’t agree with all their assertions — I suppose it’s at least possible that she could have been duped — it’s well worth a look:
“Overview: Who Is Behind Assassination Of Vladlen Tatarsky”
https://southfront.org/overview-who-is-behind-assassination-of-vladlen-tatarsky/
yalensis: I think Storozhenko’s hypothesis indeed has merit; it seems these acts, though obviously malicious and despicable, provide a “fix” for those in desperate need of a psychological boost. (Your drug analogy is quite fitting!)
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Thanks for that link. I have been reading some accounts as well, and it seems that the police have a solid case against Trepova.
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Oh. agreed. I’m basically playing devil’s advocate in extending her the benefit of the doubt. I suppose some of that comes from my long-standing skepticism about Lee Harvey Oswald being the “lone wolf” assassin of JFK, a doubt that appears more enlightened with each passing year.
But what the FSB already has on “Nastya”, in combination with her murky background is decidedly fishy.
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Seems like she is a hardcore Navalnyite. The litmus test is that she “fled” from Russia at the start of the SMO. Now technically, there was no reason for a woman, even a young woman, to leave the country, it’s not like they are actually going to be drafted into the army. But that was more like an ideological litmus test, the young people emigrating to show their disgust for the “Putin regime”. Then all of a sudden she returns, and now with a completely different attitude, she is all “rah rah, go Z!” and chums up to the patriotic set.
I’d bet money that the SBU recruited her during her time away, and then sent her back with instructions to try to fit back in.
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yalensis, I bring your attention to the “Friedman Unit”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_Unit
The term comes from the Iraq War, where globalism booster and pundit Thomas Friedman kept promising that Iraq would turn a corner in “the next six months”. From the Wiki people:
“As documented by FAIR, Friedman had been making such six-month predictions for a period of two and a half years, on at least fourteen different occasions.”
I guess Friedman changed his name and relocated to the Ukraine, which is why he has disappeared from American op-eds. I applaud Mister Arestovich, as the term “Arestovich Unit” would be more convenient, being a small unit of time, with an exchange rate of 8-12 Arestovich Units to one Friedman Unit.
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Haha! that’s pretty funny, thanks Ursula. True, one Arestovich Unit is equivalent to 2-3 weeks. I actually watched Arestovich’s latest show just a few minutes ago on youtube. The man is unbelievable. He spent the entire hour fingering a rosary (now all of a sudden he’s a devout Catholic?) while piously intoning that Vladlen’s death was some kind of karma for his “dehumanizing” of the Ukrainian people.
I heard that there was a child in the cafe who either died or was injured. I wonder how that scenario fits into divine karma. Not to mention the other collateral damage.
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There even was a cartoon :
Maybe one could be done for Arestovich…
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Ach, these neocons are something else….
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This kind of terrorism doesn’t move around like an army. Although several components are/were involved, the final [and very deadly] act was delivered by a single person. Such acts are [almost] impossible to prevent, unless one’s clairvoyant.
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I agree exactly. One can try to do one’s due diligence and mitigate risk, but in the end it is impossible to prevent every incident.
Reading more news as it comes in, people are saying this particular assassination was in the works for over a year, and very carefully organized. In which case, it doesn’t seem to have been organized very well at all, unlike the Darya Dugina assassination. That was a “Mission Impossible” sort of thing, with many moving parts but everything coming together at the right time, and the perp getting away scot free.
In this case, they caught the perp on the very same day, seems like she bungled everything except the actual killing.
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