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Alexey Filatov, Vice-President of the International Association of Veterans of the Anti-Terror Units "Alpha"
Our expert assumptions about the fact that the degree of the terrorist threat will grow ahead of the Olympic Winter Games were justified.
I want to express my concern that perhaps the next two or three months will not be easier than it was earlier.
There will probably be a lot of clearance operations to neutralize underground terrorist gangs.
I admit that there may be some manifestation of terrorist activity, carrying out any terrorist acts.
On the one hand, we are well aware that the nature of Russian terrorism is different, for example, from the situation in Israel, America or Europe.
It has become very hard to distinguish terrorism from common banditry and extortion.
But the increased activity ahead of the Olympics still suggests that a lot of people outside of our country would not want to see our country, our Russia, united, and they would like that it would be easier to haggle over our resources - natural, human, material, intangible, that we should be divided into twenty some areas, that Russia should cease to be strong.
Probably, so to speak, now, few people can try to oppose something to America and still try to make the world a system of equilibrium.
So, I think the trouble will continue, because terrorism is one of the most effective weapons against the state, against the authorities.
On the other hand, I want to say that the authorities are doing a lot, in general, to win, at least to turn the tide of battle in their favor.
Now the current bill, which was approved, is that now the investigators have the opportunity to bring to justice people close to the terrorists, not just quite close - children, spouses and parents, but people, say, indirectly linked to the terrorists - for example, people who were in friendly relations, who knew that the person is engaged in potential terrorist activities.
As you know, a huge debate is flaring up, because we have a very strong liberal wing, And they can be understood.
There are always references to the Constitution, to some democratic processes and laws.
But you know, I have always said: we are in the mode of a war on terrorism.
And sometimes I wonder, on the one hand, on the other hand - now in Volgograd six people died, and immediately after, in two days five students and an ensign were killed in Pskov.
But this did not cause such interest, neither from the media, nor from civil society, although there were six living people, our Russians who were killed, in both cases.
What does this mean? This means that each killed person, every such act of terrorism, is a hundred, a thousand times stronger than an ordinary *** on the road out of alcoholism or drug addiction.
And very often this leads to popular unrest. In general, it is no secret that with the help of this opposition, especially now, we can often hear "the homeland of terrorism is the Caucasus", radical Islam, that is, in this way we are divided due to religious and ethnic characteristics.
What for? So that we come together in a last fight, in order to eventually break up our country and make it less strong.
So I'll ask you: now, apparently, the bill will be discussed, and another bill is exactly the same, about corruption, and I think, of course, its passing will be more difficult, because the president has not initiated it, but in fact there is a direct pattern between regions where corruption is highly developed, and in the same regions for some reason we see more frequent terrorist acts.
The correlation is practically clear. So I think that as long as we do not defeat the corruption, probably, in general, there is fertile ground for terrorists.
I am very carefully observing the process of preparation of my colleagues who remained in the service for the Olympic Winter Games.
In the last two years a lot of work has been carried out in the North Caucasus, in close proximity to Sochi, Krasnaya Polyana.
And I am deeply convinced that during the Olympic Games at the Olympic venues nothing wrong in terms of terrorism is going to happen.
Hopefully, the biggest problem will be when our athletes will come not first but second or third.