Medvedev’s Opportunity

I agree with Ryzhkov’s comment that now would be a great time for Medvedev to show some control over the FSB, and take advantage of the opportunity presented by these terrible attacks to do something meaningful and unexpected.  From the Washington Post:

But Vladimir Ryzhkov, another opposition leader, said the public would not accept a wave of repression because the bombings had undermined Putin’s claim to have restored stability to Russia, while a severe recession has damaged his record of delivering economic growth.

“I think the regime is much weaker now than a year or two years ago because the public is raising more questions, about the economy, about the efficiency of the government, and now about security,” he said.

Ryzhkov added that he hoped Medvedev would use the crisis to investigate and take greater control of the security services, which some argue wield more power in Russia than any other institution. But such a move is unlikely because the FSB is protected by Putin, who once led the agency and remains the nation’s senior leader.

Also Brian Whitmore has an interesting post over on Power Vertical comparing the incident to the Matthias Rust episode which allowed Mikhail Gorbachev the opportunity to purge many hard line military officers because of the security failure.