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What can we expect after the Crocus massacre? Part I
Edited by Banthemar from Politico article

The corpses from Friday night’s terror attack in Moscow were barely cold before Putin began looking to spin the tragedy to his own benefit. 

The brisk response, while cynical, was to be expected. Just look at his history.
Since Putin rose to the upper echelons of power in 1998, first as the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the successors to the Soviet Union’s KGB, and later as Russia’s prime minister and eventually president, the country has suffered some 15 terrorist attacks (before no one). 

While few have been as deadly as last week’s massacre at the Crocus City Hall music venue on the outskirts of Moscow, in which at least 139 people were killed by terrorists, almost all have been used by Putin to strengthen his grip on power.

Following the Friday massacre, even though a branch of the Islamic State jihadist group claimed responsibility, Putin seized the opportunity to blame Ukraine (despite presenting no evidence). Kyiv — which Putin has been attempting to conquer in less than one week (unsuccessfully) since launching a full-scale invasion in February 2022 — is merely the Kremlin’s latest convenient scapegoat. 

Here are some previous occasions on which Putin used a brutal attack on Russia to consolidate or boost his authority — along with some thoughts on what might come next: 

1999 Russian apartment bombings
When: Sept. 4-16, 1999
What happened? A series of domestic explosions occurred in multiple cities across Russia in September 1999, while Putin was still prime minister. The total death toll reached 307.
While Moscow officially pinned the blame on Chechen separatists, some speculated they were a “false flag” operation orchestrated by Russian security officials (late Putin's colleagues).

Especially suspicious was an incident in September 1999 in Ryazan, nearly 200 kilometers from Moscow. A resident of an apartment building noticed individuals they didn’t recognize pull up in a car with Moscow license plates before placing bags in the basement of the building. Law enforcement responders found the bags contained a powdery substance and a timer. Media reports claimed the bags contained hexogen, similar to the other bombings.
Many saw it as evidence that Russia’s security services had been behind the bombings and were about to stage another one.

Nikolay Patrushev, then chief of the FSB and now Putin’s main security adviser, denied those allegations, saying: “It was a drill. There was sugar [*leading to the later used innuendo of "Ryazan sugar"], no explosive substance. Such exercises are conducted beyond Ryazan as well.”

How did Putin use it to his advantage? The 1999 bombings propelled then-Russian PM Putin to the pinnacle of power. After he blamed Chechen rebels, Moscow shelled Chechnya starting Sept. 14, launching a second bloody war with the breakaway region. Promising “to wipe them out in the outhouse.” Putin styled himself as a strong leader; the Chechnya campaign significantly boosted his popularity, leading to his election as president on March 26, 2000.

Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB officer who wrote a book claiming the attacks were staged and that Ryazan was an “FSB fiasco,” was later killed in London by two ex-FSB agents. In line with the findings of a 2016 British inquiry into Litvinenko's death, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that the FSB, the successor to the KGB, carried out the operation to kill him, which was "probably approved by Mr. [Nikolai] Patrushev, then head of the FSB, and also by President Putin."

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