Gleb Pavlovsky. What if it’s not a binge?

What if it’s not a binge?
Vulnerability of Russian elections to terrorist escalation

Gleb Pavlovsky

Publication date: February 9, 2004

"Is there still glory to God?" - the terrorist Grinevitsky quietly objected to Tsar Alexander before killing him.

Let’s say everything works out, and in the funniest way possible, candidate Rybkin will be found alive and well somewhere in the country . Let's say we have before us a stupid trick, favored by politicians of the early 90s - Borovoy's crossbow, the disappearance of television journalists in Crimea, the kidnapping of a Nazi, forced in a dark place to apologize to Israel. Or here’s the recent scare in front of E. Tregubova’s door. Well, there is, and it’s wonderful. Then we will laugh at our fears. But after the explosion at Paveletskaya’s, you involuntarily begin to pay attention to the little things. (And did someone install Tregubova’s firecracker too?)

A mine in an empty corridor - a suitcase of explosives in a full carriage - the disappearance of a presidential candidate of the Russian Federation. We are either inside a vile farce, or inside a multi-act scenario of destabilization, and on the eve of its climax.

Synchronization as an escalation model

An important feature of terrorism is the variability of means and methods of escalation. It is in vain that they believe that this means a progression in the power of the explosion. Political terror knows different ways of escalation.

There is a serial escalation , like the killings of Americans in Iraq, where monotony and repetition - one or two yesterday, and one today, and one or two more tomorrow... always... - increase the deadly depressive effect. There is also escalation with an increase in the force of the strike - today one, tomorrow 40, the day after tomorrow... And there is a scenario escalation , when you were afraid of explosives, and you are bombarded with stunning news... If a registered candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation - hopefully a protected person - goes missing 5 weeks before the elections, it won’t be found in the shortest possible time, we will have to talk about the terrorist version as the central one. The main tool of terrorist escalation is not the number of victims, but the dramaturgy of synchronization , instilling an imaginary logic in the target audience. The missing person becomes the paint used to paint murals of the regime's horrors: death squads, torture in a basement, execution in a cemetery, a body immersed in acid or liquid concrete.

The disappearance of candidate Rybkin is a small illustration on a hypothetical topic of what an escalation of terror might look like. And it cannot be ruled out that we are already located within the scenario of such an escalation. Anyone who was not fit to win elections would be fit to ruin them. The longer we don’t notice and admit this, the more accurately the script will play out. If I.P. will not be found alive and well, Russia will find itself in a situation that, oddly enough, may require even greater endurance and intelligence than in the days of Dubrovka .

Who is author? Any

Mixing suspicions about the initiative and (possible) initiators of a terrorist attack is the norm of a terrorist staging. The director always builds a plot by “mixing” several interested parties into the mix. This is what bin Laden did to the Palestinians, Serbs and Taliban in the 9/11 attacks . And today we see a complex picture from which a number of equally convincing puzzles can be put together.

It is clear that the authorities have nothing to do with this - not registering a candidate with zero point two percent rating is much safer than kidnapping him. But there is and cannot be a good way out of the situation for the authorities - other than declaring the victim alive and well somewhere in London or Tula.

Three options (not counting the unlikely accident for the cautious Ivan Petrovich) are in sight:

1. Sponsor's scenario , possibly at first with the participation of the candidate himself, with a sub-option of turning a voluntary participant in the drawing into a victim. The simulated kidnapping suddenly turns out to be a reality show (not uncommon in such cases).

Everyone knows how to put two and two together: B. Berezovsky confidently asserted that Putin would lose the presidency this year. Berezovsky called the way to do this - to delegitimize the elections. If candidate Rybkin disappears into the night, the legitimacy of the election will be dealt a moral and legal blow - and Berezovsky will be the first suspect. “I don’t doubt for a minute that our quiet Ivan Petrovich was politically only suitable for decorating the list of losses. Then the Sponsor’s promise to find in Rybkin a means to overthrow Putin this year will begin to look like something worse than his usual boasting: an excellent, dangerous, perverted mind is packed into the boast. But by the way, couldn’t it be the mind of another?

From here -

2. Director #2 is an “ordinary” terrorist, for example, the One-Legged Caucasian, a former Chechen comrade of the Sponsor. Are you expecting a second explosion from him in the subway? Take your time. They are waiting for you not where you prepared. After all, we are not the only ones who know how to add 2 and 2 - someone else can calculate in the same way, using Berezovsky himself as packaging material for his subversive scheme. There is a “paradox of nuclear Saddam” - an empty talker and a shady man, in control of billions, will one day run into someone who catches him with a threatening word and “convicts” him. This was the case in the Ukrainian Gongadze case, where a corpse was “mounted” to someone’s foul language. Here is our billionaire, shouting on every London corner - “I will subvert! I will delegitimize! I have the means..!” - just begs to be a setup for a real terrorist.

3. Finally, the initiative of a criminal group within the special services themselves cannot be ruled out - the Kholodov case or leftist subversives in Moscow. Such interest clubs, which easily fall under someone's external control, are a favorite subject of secret pranks.

We have had all these options in the past, and any of them is probable.

All three scenarios do not make the slightest sense, other than an attempt to turn them against V. Putin’s electoral legitimacy. Such kidnappings - or simulations of them - have a single goal: destabilization. Even if everything works out - God forbid! - most likely we are faced with a sounding sound like a clap at the door of Tregubov’s apartment. But even then it became clear how easy it is to catch our politicians on the hook of the calculated version. In the calculation of the production, we are ready to repeat any slander against the authorities, without requiring either evidence or simply credibility.

The system in which we live has no resistance to unverifiable rumors, and its attempt to refute the libel will look clumsy and unconvincing. We are faced with an attempt to stage a “bloody regime”, pushing the system and the empty-headed opposition into a crisis that the two of them will not be able to cope with. And if this is precisely the concept of provocation, if Rybkin is really kidnapped and not sleeping somewhere, the poor fellow is lost forever .