Alexandre del Valle’s analysis –

Francesca Musacchio

March 23, 2024

«No lead can be ruled out but the matrix could be linked to Ukrainian legionnaires or pro-Ukrainian Russians. Among the opponents who hate Putin there are also many radical Islamists. At the moment all the leads remain open but I think it could be plausible that it is an internal pro-Ukraine legion with an anti-Kremlin function and it cannot be ruled out that they also used some Islamists.” Alexandre del Valle, Italian-French professor of geopolitics at IPAG-Paris and at Luiss in Rome, member of the laboratory of the Côte d’Azur University, of the French Intelligence Research Center (CF2R) and of the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA), regarding last night’s attack in Moscow.

Professor, if it were a pro-Ukraine legion, what purpose would you have carried out this attack?
«The current aim of the Ukrainians, even officially, is to bring fire to Russian territory to change public opinion. This is not a stupid move to break the taboo of non-violation of Russian territory. It will be more and more like this in the future. It’s quite logical what’s happening and it’s strange that they haven’t done it before. I would add that Ukraine has officially denounced and denied its responsibility and accused the Russians of having carried out a false flag operation.”

The Islamic State, according to some Arab agencies and also through the official Daesh agency, claimed responsibility for the attack.
«It wouldn’t be too strange given the Chechen commitment to ISIS for some time. We cannot deny or exclude the ISIS or al Qaeda lead, given that many anti-Kadyrov and anti-Putin Chechens from the Caucasus or Syria have gone to Ukraine since 2014 or are sometimes in Russia through new Chechen followers on Russian territory. Then we remember the warning from the US embassy on 8 March about the risk of attacks, and then the one avoided by the FSB on the Moscow synagogue. We remember that at the beginning of March American diplomacy had warned US citizens in the Russian capital against the danger of attacks by extremists.”

What could Russia’s reaction be after this attack?
«It will provoke a radical intervention on the anti-Putin opposition in Russia and leaves a lot of freedom for Putin to justify everything, on the same day he turns the special operation into an assumed and official war. What happened can be used by Putin to justify anything. We Westerners don’t know how to stop the Ukrainians when they go too far, apart from Elon Musk who warned not to cross the red line. Apart from this, the Westerners do not know how to stop the Ukrainians when they want to use the Russians to massacre or arrest the opposition, but the opponents are not only more opponents, but they are enemies of the nation linked to the Ukrainian enemy who kills the Russians. This can make Putin take revenge to massacre the Ukrainians. We are mutually moving towards an escalation, not a nuclear one, I’m talking about tactics. Now it is allowed more and more.”