Two prominent Russian officials appear to be spearheading divergent paths for addressing religious extremism in Russia as ethnic and religious tension in Russia continues to rise. Russian Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin commented on the June 23 terrorist attacks in the Republic of Dagestan and claimed on June 29 that Islamic terrorists were “able to carry their banner of Islamic terror” into Russia and that the State Duma must respond to the threat of Islamic terrorists in Russia.[1] Bastrykin’s indictment of Islamists prompted backlash from Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov, who urged Bastrykin and other Russian officials to choose their words carefully and avoid characterizing all Muslims as terrorists.[2] Kadyrov warned that such statements threaten the unity and stability of Russia's socio-political situation. Russian milbloggers and lower-level Russian officials have previously participated in similar debates, and it is significant that Kadyrov was willing to openly criticize another high-level Kremlin official on this issue.[3] Bastrykin has previously positioned himself as a prominent figure in Russia's ultranationalist movement and is placing himself at odds with Kadyrov, who often presents himself as a representative of Russia's Muslim minority.[4] Putin previously attempted to quell concerns within the Russian information space about the threat posed by migrant and Muslim communities following the Crocus City Hall attack on March 22 by simultaneously calling for unspecified changes to Russia's migration policy and denouncing Islamophobia and xenophobia.[5] Putin may weigh in on Bastrykin’s and Kadyrov’s debate in the coming days in hopes of similarly quelling concern among Russians and a possible future conflict between Bastrykin and Kadyrov.
Russian ultranationalists continue to express growing doubt in Russian authorities’ ability to prevent another terrorist attack and to address ethnic and religious tensions within Russia following the June 23 terrorist attacks in the Republic of Dagestan. Russian ultranationalists widely circulated a story alleging that extremists harassed a Russian doctor in Dagestan who refused to see a patient who would not remove her niqab (a long garment worn by some Muslim women to cover their entire body and face, excluding their eyes) and claimed that extremist actors orchestrated the event to incite further ethnic and religious tensions within Dagestan.[6] Russian ultranationalists also claimed that Dagestani officials know the identities of extremist thought leaders but have allowed radical Salafi-Jihadists to control entire spheres of public life within the republic.[7] These claims led to renewed discussions about banning niqab in Russia, which prompted Bastrykin to voice indirect support for banning the style of dress.[8] Select Western and Muslim-majority countries have imposed various statutes banning religious dress and garments that cover one's face, although the Russian ultranationalist discussion focusing on niqab is strange given the scarcity of Muslims wearing niqab in Russia. The Russian ultranationalist preoccupation with the niqab appears to be a talking point for ultranationalists to express their perception of an extremist threat emanating from Russia's Muslim-minority communities and to criticize Russian authorities for not doing enough to prevent what ultranationalists consider to be inevitable future terrorist attacks.[9] Russian ultranationalists will likely continue to express their fears about further terrorist attacks in ways that further inflame ethnic and religious tension, and ISW continues to assess that Russian ultranationalist rhetoric is partially alienating minority and Muslim-majority communities and generating animosities that Salafi-Jihadi groups can exploit in recruitment efforts.[10]
Some new Russian military personnel are reportedly receiving insufficient training before deploying to Ukraine. A Russian milblogger claimed that new Russian personnel receive roughly 14 days of training on average before deploying to the frontline.[63] The milblogger noted that new Russian personnel receives four to five days of real training and that the 14 days encompass the time between signing a military contract and arriving at the front in Ukraine.[64] A former Storm-Z instructor agreed with the milblogger’s assessment and bemoaned problems with general training.[65] The milblogger also noted that an average Ukrainian soldier appears to receive much more training than the average Russian soldier.[66] The Russian military is currently committing all Russian forces, regardless of their formal designations, to more or less similar operations along the front and continues to mainly leverage mass in infantry and occasional mechanized assaults to make creeping advances instead of relying on highly trained units.[67] This decision has likely lowered training requirements for most new Russian personnel set to fight in Ukraine, although 14 days is still insufficient for generating even limited combat effective personnel. While many new Russian personnel may receive inadequate training, Russian forces likely provide Russian personnel with further training following deployment to Ukraine and are likely attempting to offer better training for select elements.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-29-2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin's theory of victory that Russia will be able to make creeping advances in Ukraine indefinitely will incentivize Putin to protract the war and harden Putin's commitment to destroying Ukrainian statehood. The West must hasten to provide Ukraine the support it needs to conduct counteroffensive operations to invalidate Putin's theory of victory and avoid protracting the war more than necessary to secure a peace acceptable to Ukraine and its partners. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer published on June 30 that he fears that the West is afraid of pushing for full Ukrainian victory due to Western concerns about Russian stability and that this fear has allowed Putin to pursue the seizure of as much Ukrainian territory as possible.[1] Zelensky warned that every Russian advance strengthens Russia's bargaining power and that Putin can choose to try to leverage this bargaining power at opportune moments to pursue a ceasefire that would allow Russia to prepare for future aggression against Ukraine.[2]
Putin has articulated a theory of victory that assumes that Russian forces will be able to continue gradual creeping advances indefinitely, prevent Ukraine from conducting successful operationally significant counteroffensive operations, and win a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces.[3] The Russian military command is currently prioritizing consistent offensive operations that achieve gradual tactical gains over conducting a large-scale discrete offensive operation that aims to make operationally significant gains through rapid maneuver.[4] Putin and the Russian military command likely view creeping offensive operations as a more guaranteed approach to making gains in Ukraine than larger mobile offensives and appear to be accepting the reality that Russian forces may have to pursue individual operationally significant objectives over the course of many months if not years.[5] Putin has recently demanded that Ukraine cede all of occupied Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts as well as the parts of those four oblasts that Ukraine currently controls.[6] A protracted war favors Putin's calculus since he likely assesses that Russia will be able to hold any ground it takes and that Russian forces will be more likely to achieve his current stated territorial objectives the longer the war progresses. Putin and the Kremlin have intentionally set no limits to their objectives of conquest in Ukraine and have suggested repeatedly that areas outside of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts are part of Russia.[7] Protracted war will likely incentivize Putin to explicitly set new territorial objectives as long as he assesses that Ukrainian forces can neither stop his advances nor conduct meaningful counteroffensives.
Putin retains his objective of entirely destroying Ukrainian statehood and identity, and all his objectives for territorial conquest in Ukraine are a means to this end.[8] Putin likely hopes that creeping Russian advances in Ukraine will convince the West that Ukrainian victory is unattainable and that concessions on Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty are preferable to Ukrainian defeat.[9] Putin is currently unwilling to accept anything short of full Ukrainian capitulation, however, as his remarks and demands consistently show, and he will see any negotiated ceasefire agreement as a mechanism for Russia to prepare for renewed offensive operations in the future to achieve his overall aims. A negotiated ceasefire that further establishes a precedent for violating Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty beyond the precedent already established by the Minsk Accords following Russia's seizure of Crimea and parts of Luhansk and Donetsk in 2014 will strengthen Russia's position to pursue the full eradication of Ukrainian statehood at a later date. This ceasefire would provide Russia a respite in the war to reconstitute and expand its forces and to further mobilize its defense industrial base (DIB) for future aggression.[10] Putin and the Russian military command likely hope that a ceasefire will allow Russia to launch a future stage of the war with a military more capable of pursuing operationally significant advances. Putin is not yet interested in a ceasefire, however, as he appears to continue to assess that he can achieve his aims by force. He might become more open to a ceasefire if that condition changes, but a negotiated ceasefire on Putin's terms would amount to Ukrainian and Western capitulation. Neither of these courses of action are consistent with the survival of an independent Ukrainian state or the Ukrainian people, nor are they compatible with NATO's vital security interests.
Ukraine's partners can help Ukraine reduce Putin's willingness to continue to wage endless war in pursuit of Ukraine's destruction by helping Ukraine conduct significant counteroffensive operations that liberate Ukrainian territory and invalidate Putin's assumptions about what Russia can achieve in Ukraine by force. Putin's current theory of victory rests on Russia's ability to outlast and overcome pledged Western security assistance to Ukraine and Ukrainian efforts to mobilize more of its economy and population for the war effort.[11] Putin and the Russian military command are increasingly viewing the retention of the theater-wide initiative as a strategic imperative and will continue to leverage the initiative to try to force Ukraine to commit manpower and materiel to current defensive operations and to prevent Ukraine from accumulating the personnel and resources Ukraine needs to contest the initiative.[12] Putin's theory of victory rests on the assessment that Ukraine lacks the capability to liberate operationally significant territory — Russia's creeping advances hold no operational significance if Ukraine can undo those gains more rapidly when Ukraine regains the battlefield- or theater-wide initiative. Western security assistance and Ukrainian force generation efforts that allow Ukraine to contest the initiative are thus crucial to changing Putin's calculus, and it is unlikely that Putin will change his assessment regarding the feasibility of destroying Ukraine without further significant Russian defeats. Western security assistance that provides Ukrainian forces with the necessary equipment and weapons at the scale, timing, and regularity that Ukrainian forces require for operations that liberate significant swaths of occupied Ukraine remains the only likely path for reducing Putin's current commitment to destroying Ukrainian statehood and identity regardless of time or cost.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-30-2024
Russian blogger:
After the ban on niqabs, new measures to combat terrorism are being prepared. They will affect Muslims in Moscow and other large cities.
We wrote that after Dagestan, wearing niqabs will be banned throughout Russia. Our insider information is confirmed - following Dagestan, niqabs were banned in Karachay-Cherkessia. Such bans will be extended throughout the country.
By the way, Dmitry Peskov told the truth - there are no discussions on the topic of niqabs in the Kremlin. “Vladimir Vladimirovich is for banning them , what is there to discuss at all?” - our source in the Presidential Administration explained. According to him, another discussion is currently underway - about what other restrictions related to Islam can be introduced. So that Muslims “won’t be offended” and the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism can be increased. “We are currently discussing with the security forces what bans and other preventive measures can be adopted to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks in large cities. We are talking, first of all, about Moscow, but not only about it. The issue is complicated, but a certain list of measures already exists,” our interlocutor noted.
He did not say what exactly he was talking about. But he promised to tell everything as soon as some decisions were made. And he expressed hope that “all Muslims, except terrorists, will treat them with understanding . After all, defeating terrorists and radicals is our common goal.”
https://t.me/kremlin_secrets/4335
Many countries have restrictions on niqabs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niq%C4%81b and this is of course necessary.
This is the position in Pakistan: Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) said women are not required to cover their faces, hands or feet under Islamic Sharia law, a rare judgement from the conservative council of clerics seen as “encouraging” by rights activists on Tuesday. The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), which was formed in 1962 to advise parliament on the compatibility of laws with Sharia, made the ruling during its meeting on Monday.
However, the chairman of the council Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani also “advised women to follow ethics and have a careful attitude in society”, a spokesperson told AFP.