Friday, April 5, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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The tip came from the enemy. So, of course, the president found it suspicious — and provocative. He was, after all, ex-KGB.
But what came next would have infuriated Vladimir Putin even if he had only been ex-Bolshoi ballet. Right after their CIA tipped his officials, their embassy put it all online. So, just before Election Day, ordinary Russians knew all about it:
“Security Alert: Avoid Large Gatherings over the Next 48 Hours.
“Location: Moscow, Russia. The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours. 7 March 2024.”
(The U.S. Embassy alert left out one mega-detail that the CIA’s Moscow operatives reportedly told Russian officials, according to a New York Times report: The extremists involved were the Islamic State’s faction known as ISIS-K.)
Putin promptly lit his famously short fuse, pounded his equally famous iron fist — and moved quickly to make sure ordinary Russians knew he was in command and totally in control. Putin summoned the board that runs his Federal Security Service (FSB).
Putin blasted his enemies — and made sure his words ended up in Tass, Pravda and on every Russian news screen. Without offering any evidence, Putin claimed Ukraine was now using “terrorist tactics.” He said the West was making “provocative statements” about potential attacks in Russia. And Putin claimed the West’s warnings “resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”
Three days later, terrorists shot up the concert at Crocus City Hall near Moscow, killing at least 144 people. Islamic State terrorist leaders claimed credit for the attack. But Putin had his FSB director claim on TV that the “special services of Ukraine are directly related to this” – and Russia believes the United States and Britain are, too.
If the Russians had taken the U.S. tip more seriously — and had not scoffed at the alert and spun it into an unsupported (see also: Big Lie) claim blaming it on Ukraine and the West — the tragedy might have been averted. Or minimized.
But while we are talking about the might-have-beens, we also ought to remember what used to be. At the turn of the 21st century, Russia and its new young president, Putin, were much different than anything we see today. The United States and post-Cold War noncommunist Russia were, in many ways, becoming somewhat like allies in a new world order.
One day in 2002, while Russia’s new young president, Putin, was at work in his Kremlin office, his adviser on strategic affairs, Marshal Igor Sergeyev, was in his nearby office, talking with a U.S. journalist about his hopes for Russia’s new close relationship with the United States. Sergeyev, who had commanded Russia’s nuclear forces and served as defense minister, hoped the two nuclear superpowers would succeed in preventing terrorists from obtaining poorly secured nuclear weapons and materials around the world. (Yep, he was talking with me. I was writing a 2003 book and was managing editor of a PBS television documentary series, both titled “Avoiding Armageddon.”)
We talked about a most unusual and optimistic collaboration: U.S. Gen. Eugene Habinger, commander of America’s strategic forces, and Sergeyev, his Russian counterpart, had a series of meetings that culminated in the two top generals touring each other’s top-secret nuclear facilities. Sergeyev tells me that in his Soviet military days, he had “no doubt, any American was an enemy for me.” But now, he said, he and Gen. Habinger had bonded: “Today our best friends in America are the strategic commanders of the strategic armed forces. … I saw many things in common between us.”
Sergeyev envisioned a grand future that he once could not have imagined. A future of global security that is assured by the permanent strength of what he called “an Arch of Stability. The United States, Russia and China — that is the Arch of Stability.”
Fast-Forward: Sergeyev didn’t live long enough to see his former boss, Putin, erupt in a fit of rage and yank the keystone that was Russia out of that Arch of Stability that Sergeyev believed would be his dream-come-true.
In 2014, the late marshal’s former boss, Putin, felt enraged when independent Ukraine began a close trade relationship with Europe. In a flash fit of rage, Putin’s military seized Ukraine’s Crimea. Now Putin is making war on the rest of Ukraine.
As we all know, an arch that loses its keystone quickly becomes just a pile of rubble. Today, as a sadder world watches, Russia’s militarily aggressive Vladimir Putin seems intent upon achieving just one grand global goal. To borrow Winston Churchill’s famous phrase, today’s Putin seems determined to make Marshal Sergeyev’s Arch of Stability rubble bounce.
Martin Schramis a columnist for Tribune News Service.
