[Zhang Fei]

I agree with you, for the most part. The only added complication here that needs to be scrutinized is the FBI’s prior investigation of the older brother. I mean — maybe it’s me, but if I was called in to investigate a recent immigrant for radical Islamic ties on the basis of a request from a foreign government (and not just any government, but the Russian government), you can bet that guy would be on my radar screen constantly.

The Russian government, with its Soviet record of sending domestic political dissidents to gulags and its post-Soviet continuation of a record of assassinating dissidents-in-exile?

[Alberta's Child]

Good point. But this guy surely didn't meet the same level of interest you've described. If he was over here and his parents (or his father, at least) had traveled back to Russia for extended periods of time, then he's hardly someone who would warrant much interest or scrutiny from the Russian government as a "dissident" of some kind.

I'll tell what I think happened here: The U.S. government has been quietly supporting those Chechen separatists for years despite their violent history, so they probably didn't pay any mind to the Russians at all.