Joining me
for is
former long time
CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty.
Jill,
so can you just put it in perspective
for our viewers, the scale of the shock
that this created
for the Russian people
and for the government
and it didn't happen in a vacuum here?
Yes, that's really true.
You know,
I think it is traumatizing for Russians
because you look back
ever since
Vladimir Putin was a president,
which began, you know, 24 years ago.
There have been a lot of terror attacks.
And after each one,
there was an investigation.
Not clear what happened.
And just looking at this, literally days
after Putin was reelected
for a fifth term,
I think they feel very, very insecure.
And then the government on the other side
and we can talk about that,
is trying to explain,
you know, why this happened.
And as Matthew pointed out,
apparently Putin was warned
by the United States
about there picking up intel
that there could be some type of attack,
in fact, in a theater, possibly
And he just dismissed it
as blackmail and attempt
to destabilize the country.
So I think there are a lot of answers
that Russians would like to have.
That said,
I think the government
will try to divert them into paths
of thinking that the government
wants them to have.
And look,
you know, to your point,
the United States says
it warned Moscow of an impending attack.
Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
and Washington is now denying
receiving that warning.
But it was a bulletin that was out there
publicly, as has been described
by our reporting.
I'm curious from your perspective.
Russia has said they thwarted attacks
like these in the past.
How do you anticipate
Russia addressing
the basic security failures that clearly
happened here?
Well,
I don't think they are going to address
them, quite honestly.
I mean,
I covered so many attacks going way
back to the end of Yeltsin
and the beginning of Putin,
then all through Putin.
And there's always an investigation.
There's always a big excitement about,
you know,
we will get to the bottom of this
and they never do.
I have to be honest. They never do.
They never quite
come to the point
of explaining
exactly how these things happened.
So I would presume that
they will have another investigation
and it will yield probably some
you know, examination, some conclusion.
But I don't think they will explain,
even if
they may know what the real purposes.
And Omar,
one thing on the ambassador,
that statement did come out.
Ambassador to the United States.
But he is saying we here at the embassy
in Washington, D.C.,
nothing was passed to us.
He is not saying
that the Russian government
did not get this directly.
And that's what the
the Biden administration is saying.
We warned
Russia gave them that
information directly.
So they may not have talked
to the embassy.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, it's a very important distinction
there now.
Look,
it does appear
because at the center of this,
this is a tragedy.
Over 100 people killed here.
And then now comes the investigation
and also the information stream
that everyone is now
trying to pass through
what is real,
what is propaganda,
what is being used
for political purposes.
And it does appear Vladimir Putin
is trying to it,
at least in some ways
use this attack for political purposes
by implicating Ukraine
and trying to unite Russians
behind this Ukraine war,
as he has been trying to do
since this war began.
What are the chances
that that effort succeeds
in the wake of this attack?
Well, you know,
they have at
their disposal
all of the media all of the state media.
They already have a population
that is traumatized by the war
and has been already propaganda
in days
to believe
that the West is out to get Russia.
You know,
it's the West
is existential battle against the West.
And so
I think the Kremlin will try to fold that
into this narrative
that, you know, that
Russia is under attack.
They also will probably try
to make common cause
with terrorism everywhere.
You heard that
in some of the comments
that were given to Matthew
in those interviews.
So I think they will try, as I
said, kind of derail
will any attempt by Russians to really
hold Putin
to account
for this
what is obviously a security failure?
Yeah.
Jill, Dougherty,
thank you for
your perspective, as always.
Kim, I also
want to dig
in a little bit
to what we are
seeing in terms of the fallout
from the awful terror
attack in Moscow over the weekend.
There was a U.S.
warning around
intelligence related to
something like this happening
I want to show you
what Senator Tim Kaine had to say
and then we'll talk about
what Vladimir Putin is trying to
claim is going on. Much
The U.S.
did warn Russia.
And Vladimir
Putin gave a speech on Tuesday
discounting the warning,
saying we were trying
to meddle and create confusion.
We also warned Iran
a couple of months ago
about a potential attack by ISIS there.
If you want to know the difference
between democracies and authoritarians,
we will tell nations
if we're worried about their civilians.
Russia Iran would never tell us
if they had news
that there was going to be a terrorist
attack in the United States.
So, Kim, Putin is now trying
to say
that there is Ukrainian involvement
or links to what went on.
What do we actually know
and what is Putin going for with that?
Well, look,
Putin needs a fall guy
because his security services
had been tracking an ISIS threat,
had publicly announced
disrupting various ISIS plots in Russia
and the caucuses
And, you know,
a couple of years ago,
ISIS, Khorasan, the group in Afghanistan,
had attacked Russians
at Russia's embassy there.
So there was this long standing threat
from ISIS operatives.
Putin needs to convince his people
that he didn't
leave them unprotected
while he was pursuing a war of choice
and aggression. Next door in Ukraine.
That's why
I think you're seeing reports
that the U.S.
and Britain have dismissed
as not credible that these suspects
these four Tajik suspects
were captured on their way to Ukraine,
on their way to a border area
that's mind and full of patrols.
And I would choose to get out
absolutely in my life.
Briefly, Stephen,
the Journal headline is Attack in
Russia Deals A Blow to Putin's
Strongman Image.
So what's going on?
Yeah.
This is humiliating
for Putin,
who set himself up
as the ultimate guarantor
of Russian security,
portraying himself
as as
a bulwark
against all these different forces
that he argues
are trying to infringe
on Russian sovereignty.
And when, you know, the history
of this suggests
that when Putin is humiliated,
that leads to more repression at home
and more aggression abroad.
And you've seen even over
the last few days
very intense missile attacks on Ukraine.
Which were taking place
before this attack,
but carried on through it.
And that's a way of,
you know, trying to take attention
away from what happened in Moscow.