Yeah, we publicly issued a warning through the embassy on the 7th, while at the same time privately warned the Russian government ISIS was up to something, and then it happens and ISIS publicly claims it, so of course Putin wants to link it to Ukraine.
It’s telling that Russia even tried to blame the Russians in the Russian Freedom Legion or whatever, and that the stories the Russian bots on Twitter were pushing were so laughable. Any Ukrainian special forces in Russia proper are spotting for drones or going to focus on high-ranking military leaders, not civilians in a concert hall.
I think it’s a pretty good sign that the Russian intelligence services or the intelligence components of their security services (KGB, FSB, etc.) are pretty tapped out and spread thin with Ukraine, and unable to focus elsewhere. Either this came out of the anger with Putin sending minorities (including lots of Muslims) to Ukraine in disproportionate numbers (versus say Muscovites) or this came out of Syria and anger over the Russians and Assad slaughtering/cleansing or displacing Sunnis.
I don’t know the makeup of Muslims in the outlying regions of Russia who are pissed at Moscow, but ISIS is mostly Wahhabi, and there are plenty of candidates in Syria that they could draw from. And there’s always the specter of Chechnya starting shit if they think Putin is weak and couldn’t respond (with or without Kadyrov at the helm).
If the comments about Dagestan being Azerbaijan are correct, that adds another facet to this - Putin will have to use valuable resources to tighten up security in the outer regions,