News

On 3 January, Interfax-Russia Agency reported that the President of Russia together with the Prime Minister inspected the readiness of the Olympic facilities and infrastructure for the Games in Sochi. Putin and Medvedev also found time to ski and talk over a glass of mulled wine.

Comment

The trip of Putin and Medvedev in Sochi was held after the resonance explosions in Volgograd, where tens of people died and more than fifty wounded were in hospitals. On 29 December, there was an explosion of the entrance to the rail way station in Volgograd and the next day the going-along-the route trolleybus was bombed. Both of these explosions are connected with the coming Olympiad in Sochi. Investigation states that in both cases there were cases of self-explosion of gunmen from North Caucuses who were intending thereby to disrupt the Games in Sochi.

Such statements were after the previous explosion in Volgograd less than two months ago, where also some people died. Then it was officially announced that a Muslim woman made that self-explosion on the instructions of North Caucuses gunmen. But special services' statements, also videos and pictures from the place of explosion caused a lot of issues and put in doubt the official version. Then in a short time the case was closed after the no less mysterious murder of the alleged customer of that explosion, which led to more questions.

For this reason after the recent explosions there appear some doubts as to the statements of the investigation, although it is possible that the explosions were committed by North Caucuses gunmen, as they really announced their intention to disrupt the Games in Sochi. So it is not excluded that the explosions were committed by the U.S. intelligence services since they are interested in destabilizing the situation in Russia and are not less cynical of their Russian colleagues.
Thus the price for Olympiad in Sochi is not billions of dollars but people's lives.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Suleyman Ibragimov