Putin’s tough-guy line about "digging terrorists out from the bottom of the sewer" really doesn’t land. It was obviously prepared in advance, but it still came off badly. People have already started having a field day with the old "waste them in the outhouse" line, and now he’s "digging around in the sewer." And today MK (Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Russian tabloid) ran the headline "Risen from the Outhouse." In general, militant statements are great. I’m all for them. People need to be shown that we mean business. We’ll catch up and crack down. But those statements should, like, be backed up by something. Obviously, the most heavily guarded city in Russia is Moscow. Unfortunately, it seems to be the only city in the country that is guarded at all. And obviously, the metro is the most vulnerable target, and therefore the most heavily guarded site in the most heavily guarded city. (if you don’t count places for public use rather than residence-dachas). So the magic of words evaporated very effectively yesterday, at the moments when millions of people were frantically calling their relatives who use the metro.
Let’s see how exactly they’re going to dig them out. My guess is that, to start with, Ramzan will be promoted to lieutenant general. Then they’ll immediately allocate another 50 billion for the emergency, secret, no-bid purchase of scanners and detectors. And after that, they’ll sew up a new uniform.