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Ex-Wagner fighter blames Putin for Russian concert hall attack · Kvetch & Release

• 0:04
  Well, last month there was that terror attack that took place in Moscow,
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  and although Russian officials have been trying to pin the blame on everyone except for
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  those who have taken credit for it, they continue to shift the focus to
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  Ukraine, and in fact, even just recently within the past couple of hours,
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  we have seen that Russian authorities are still trying to link this deadly Moscow
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  concert hall attack to Ukraine. Someone who has been following this issue very closely
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  for the last number of years, intimately covering it as well as Adam Zevo,
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  who is a columnist with the National Post. Adam, how are you
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  today? I'm great, Thanks for having me on the show. Thank you
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  so much for joining me. Let's just start off. Why don't you give
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  a brief rundown quickly as to what actually did occur? Okay, so,
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  last month, four male fighters broke into Krocuss City Hall, which is a
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  concert complex in Moscow, and basically gunned down and killed one hundred and thirty
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  seven people. They then fled in a car and tried to make it to
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  Belarus and then tried to flee westward afterwards before being apprehended. Now, part
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  of the reason why the casualty rate was so high was that Russian security officials
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  took a strangely long time to respond, So the terrorists were basically just given
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  free reign to kill people for about an hour. And it's kind of shocking
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  that in a country as surveiled as Russia, where you can't protest the war
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  without being arrested like almost immediately, that these men were able to do all
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  of this. So the terrorist attack was quite shocking. It was the worst
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  terror attack to occur in Moscow in twenty years. The previous one was in
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  the early two thousands of Beeve two thousand and three, which was when a
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  whole bunch of Chechen independence fighters took hundreds of people hostage in a theater.
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  So twenty years after, basically it reminds people of that attack, and so
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  Russians were shocked. They were angry not just at the terror attack itself,
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  but also their government's lackadaisical response to it. So of course Russia had to
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  find someone to pin the blame on aside from themselves, so they tried to
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  blame Ukraine. And the reason that we're speaking with you about this is because
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  that you actually had an exclusive interview through the National Post with Merit Gaviddolin,
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  who is a former Wagner Group commander. What did he have to say to
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  you? Well, I mean, Gabadulin basically verified to the best of his
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  knowledge that Ukraine was not involved, and he provided some exclusive intelligence based on
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  his contacts in Syria that suggested that it was ICE's fighters who had done all
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  of this. Now just to provide further contact. Shortly after the terror attack,
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  Ices did claim responsibility for the attack, and what Putin essentially claimed was
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  that Kief had somehow orchestrated this attack and that the ISIS fighters were fleeing westward
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  to Ukraine, where the Ukrainian army had opened a quote unquote window in the
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  front lines, therefore indicating that Ukraine was involved. Now, bela Russian president
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  Lukashenko basically undermined that narrative by saying that actually the fighters had to fly try
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  to fly flee to Belarus first. But essentially what Madat did is that he
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  first of all said that none of this narrative makes any sense. He said
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  that, you know, it would make no sense for Ukraine to try to
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  open a window in the front lines, even if it wanted to because that
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  would require Russian forces to open up a parallel window for anyone to escape through,
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  right, because the front line has two armies, right, so just
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  because one army decides that's went through doesn't mean the other army can. So
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  obviously that narrative doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And then they all also said
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  that, you know, it doesn't make any sense for the Ukrainians to do
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  this kind of attack given that they have really limited resources, especially recently given
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  the lack of aid coming from the United States. So they've got to focus
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  on protecting their infrastructure. They've got to focus on the battlefield, and when
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  they do launch attacks into Russia, they always focus on attacking critical infrastructures such
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  as oil refineries, remunitions factories. You know, massacring one hundred and thirty
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  seven civilians in Moscow just doesn't make sense, especially since it makes Ukraine more
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  vulnerable by creating political support for mobilization within Russia. Now, the last thing
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  about Madats is that, you know, he's a former Wagner commander. Wagner.
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  Wagner is a it's a private militia that was under the rule of guy
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  named Yevgeni Pregosian and essentially this this army acted as Putin's shadow army for many,
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  many years before being disbanded last year after rebelling against against Putin. So
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  Madats had worked with Wagner for about three years in the late twenty tens,
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  and he basically fought in Syria for three years. Actually, sorry, he
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  fought in Syria for three years, but he fought with Russians much longer than
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  that. And he defected in twenty twenty two. And through fighting in Syria
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  he developed a fairly extensive network of intelligence contacts that still keep him appraised of
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  what's happening inside Russia today. So after he defected to France, he wrote
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  an entire book about how disorganized the Russian military is in Syria, and he
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  became quite a credible commentator on Russian security issues. So he told me that
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  based on what he was hearing from his intelligence contacts in Syria. And keep
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  in mind, these are Russian intelligence operatives working in Syria, not Syrian government
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  workers. These are Russians who were telling him this. That back in February,
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  the Russian government was aware of the fact that some Islamist fighters had gone
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  from Syria to Turkey where they were training to sow terror in Russia, and
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  then they crossed into Russia through Georgia. So he speculated, based on this
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  intelligence that this group might be involved in the recent terror attack. However,
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  once again, this is all circumstantial evidence. But at the very least,
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  the fact that these people, you know, we're planning an active attack shows
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  how vulnerable Russia is to Islamic terrorism and shows how it was really stupid of
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  Putin to ignore us warnings that had been coming for weeks beforehand that some kind
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  of terror attack like this would occur. So what do you think are the
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  implications of the incident in Russia domestically and then in terms of international relations,
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  as you know, we're watching an increasingly fraught world right now. Well,
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  I think it's very unclear, and it depends on how effectively Russia will be
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  able to spin this narrative. So the biggest fear I think for many Ukrainians
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  is that Russia will be able to effectively convince US enough of the population that
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  Ukraine was involved to justify greater mobilization of Russian citizens for the war in Ukraine,
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  which could be disastrous. However, if they're unable to do that,
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  and it becomes very clear that ISIS was involved. This could split Russia's attention
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  because we have to keep in mind that Russia has always had issues with controlling
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  its southern borders. Right, so, it controls a region known as the
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  Caucuses, which essentially is just northeast of Turkey, and the people there are
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  essentially Turkic or Central Asian and their Muslim and they've never liked being under Russian
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  rule. They justifiably perceive Russian rule as colonialism and imperialism, which is why
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  when the USSR collapsed in the early nineties, many of these nations try to
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  fight for their independence, most notably the Cheshnians, who were then crushed over
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  the course of fifteen years or so. And since they, you know,
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  can't have their independence, they often agitate quite violently against the Russian states,
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  which then manifests into terrorism. And that's always been a problem for Russia.
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  But because of all of their attention was focused on the West and Ukraine,
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  they kind of forgot about the Southern Front. But now the Southern Front seems
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  to have been reopened to some extent, and hopefully hopefully by splitting Russia's attention,
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  this will weaken Russian forces in Europe by overextending them. That would be
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  my hope. But we'll see what happens. It's hard to tell exactly how
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  things will play out. Things are, you know, shifting as quickly as
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  they are. So Ukraine obviously came out and denied this right away. Russia,
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  of course, is still refusing to accept that denial. What does this
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  say specifically this conflict about, you know, the broader narrative, the conflict
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  between Russia and Ukraine and how they're each reacting to the issue. Well,
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  I think, you know, like Ukraine's response is very understandable. I mean,
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  when someone tells you you did something and you didn't do it, you
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  just deny it. Once again, the narrative coming out of Russia is absurd
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  and no credible source has given it any thought, right. I mean,
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  we're looking at a former Wagner commander who is instantly tied into the Russian security
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  apparatus saying that this is absurd. From Russia's perspective, I think it underlines
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  their fear because I think that there's a loss of credibility that comes with allowing
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  domestic terrorism to occur, and I think that you know, Putin's very careful
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  about managing his legitimacy. But I think the fact that he is so focused
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  on blaming Ukraine really illustrates how singularly focused he is on subjugating Eastern Europe,
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  right like, he is so focused on subjugating Ukraine and potentially expanding the war
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  outwards beyond that, that he is willing to downplay very real threats in the
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  south in the Caucuses region, even though that region just led to the death
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  of one hundred and thirty seven civilians in the capitol. It's really interesting to
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  watch it all play out from this side over here, and without as much
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  intimate knowledge, of course, that you do. When you put out a
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  column like this that has you know, investigative sourcing, an incredible interview that
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  you've had, I wonder what the reaction is like, not only from the
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  public, but do you ever get reaction from you know, the Russian embassy
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  going we don't like this. No, I mean, you know, they
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  haven't directly reached out to me, but I'm aware of the fact that they're
• 10:41
  aware of me and that they don't like me because I was sanctioned by Russia
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  back in September of twenty twenty two, so I'm actually legally banned from entering
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  Russia, which is it's a gold star for me. But what I will
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  say, yeah, usually when I write about Russia, you can tell when
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  Russian bots are aware of my articles because there's usually like a really really big
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  flood of comments that use the same narratives over and over and over again the
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  National Post comments section, and it's like either one hundred percent or zero percent,
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  so you know, you'll either see none of those comments or you'll see
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  an absolute flood of them. And I use that as an indicator for when
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  Russia has noticed my writing and when it wants to undermine my writing. And
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  what's interesting here though, is that I was expecting a flood of comments in
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  my article with Marats, but that didn't happen. And I wonder if it's
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  because, you know, potentially they want to quarantine or they want to ignore
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  this issue as much as possible, because you have someone who has so much
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  credibility in the Russian security space exposing a really embarrassing fact about Russian governance and
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  Russia's security gaps, So maybe a pr move rather ignore it. Than to
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  draw attention to it at all. It's something that we're going to keep an
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  eye on, and Adam, I know I'll speak with you again in the
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  future about this issue. I appreciate your time today, Thanks for having me