Moscow Firemen Were Prevented From Entering Concert Hall
Russia's security forces needed to establish a 'defensive perimeter' first.
As the roof burned and flames splashed an orange hue across the night sky, the responding police officers, firefighters, and paramedics were ordered to stand down. No one was permitted to enter the building to try to save the stranded and wounded until Russia’s FSB and other security forces arrived. The firemen responded quite quickly for Russia — they were at the concert hall ten minutes after the alarm was sounded.
It took Russia’s heroic security forces nearly an hour to arrive. During that time, everyone stood and watched as the flames punched at the sky in hungry exclamations of “Can you believe they are letting us burn this thing down,” and whispers of “Can you believe they are really letting us burn this thing down?”
Some of the survivors of the initial assault pleaded to be able to return to look for friends and family, but it was commanded: “No one enters.” In general, in Russia, taking the initiative is a punishable offense. In Putin’s totalitarian regime, racing back inside to save a friend or just someone in need could be grounds for decades-long imprisonment and even death.
“You were told not to enter. But you went anyone, why?”
“To save my friend.”
“Your friend was already outside and in the mall across the street. Maybe you went back inside to destroy evidence?”
Imagining such a scenario does not take a creative or even a paranoid mind. This is Russia in 2024, after Vladimir Putin’s unprecedented fifth term.
It also does not take a creative or paranoid mind to understand why the security forces wanted to be the first to enter the blazing hall. The narrative needed to be managed. The pieces of this broken egg had to be aligned with the blood spatter lest anyone think that Putin’s version that Ukrainians were to blame was false. The suspicious van with Ukrainian license plates had to be put into place. Before the Kremlin could control the flow of information, already too much was getting out, thanks to the victims.
That’s why social media, Whatsapp, Telegram, and cell phone coverage in the area were slowed or blocked completely. The security forces said it was to prevent the terrorists from communicating with each other. Four men in close proximity to each other don’t need a lot to communicate.
An hour after the shooting started, while I was reading an article covering the assault live on Fontanka.ru, the main online news source for St. Petersburg, Russia, the blocking began. Each time I refreshed the article, it froze my phone and even crashed it completely once. Maybe the terrorists were reading the same article? Unlikely. The narrative was not being shaped correctly.
Russians were getting too much-unfiltered truth, and so the Kremlin needed to shut it down — just like back in the Soviet era when nothing bad ever happened. If a plane crashed in the Soviet Union, it would be reported that one crashed in the U.S. instead — first lying, then obfuscating, and finally admitting the truth with a shrug of the shoulders: “Yeah, so, what, planes don’t crash in the U.S.? So a plane went down. No one ever said one didn’t.”
It can — and does — make one’s head spin.
Ridiculously, most Russians will eagerly believe Putin’s bullshit version. They want to believe Ukraine did this because it’s easier, it’s tidier. The idea that Islamic terrorists are once again on the prey is scary and nerve-wracking. Also, to admit that Islamic terrorists did this risks admitting that Putin is a loser incapable of protecting Russia.
That is the truth — and the lesson — that needs to be taken away here. Either Putin is completely incapable of protecting Russians, or he is the most prolific serial killer in modern history.