Scepticism grew Tuesday over the announcement of a plot to assassinate Vladimir Putin which commentators said appeared to have been revealed to help the Russian leader’s presidential election campaign. Russia’s state-controlled Channel One had on Monday reported the arrest in the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odessa of two alleged militants with links to Chechnya who it said were planning to assassinate Putin in Moscow. The sensational report was later confirmed both by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and the official spokesman of Putin, who also described as “blasphemous” any suggestion it was a pre-election stunt. “For now, we do not know for sure if this plot was for real or not. But we know one thing. That Channel One told us about this six days before the elections.
Such a well-timed plot,” said the political commentator of Kommersant FM radio Oleg Kashin. “Is it possible that such a sensation can appear on a Kremlin-controlled channel a week before the elections without the approval of Putin’s PR people?” he asked. Yulia Latynina of the opposition Novaya Gazeta wrote sarcastically: “A Putin election campaign would not be complete if less than a week before the polls a plot was not uncovered against the adored and beloved leader.” According to security sources quoted in the Russian press, an accidental explosion in Odessa that first gave the suspects away took place on January 4, killing one alleged plotter and leading to the arrest of a wounded suspect.
The second surviving plotter went on the run but was arrested on February 4, leaving many to question why the announcement was held back almost a month until just ahead of the March 4 elections Putin is expected to win. The political editor of radio Moscow Echo, Anton Orekhov, said there was no doubt that Islamist militants from the Caucasus were “capable of carrying out whatever act of terror and for them the bloodier the better”. “But how well-timed this has all been,” he said, noting it allowed the authorities to play on an idea of “the fatherland is in danger from all sides and our leader is under threat of physical annihilation”.
‘No fear’
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he was unafraid for his life and had grown used to plots to kill him. “You cannot live with constant fear — let them fear us. I have been living with this since 1999,” when Putin first became prime minister before heading the Kremlin in 2000-2008, Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.