Every major terrorist act gives rise to conspiracy theories. September 11, 2001, still stirs the imagination of those who are convinced that it involved powerful forces pursuing their own goals behind the scenes. The tragedy in Boston is no exception. Although it was on a much smaller scale, questions remain about where it came from and why it happened. Since many people in Russia are convinced that America’s all-powerful intelligence agencies exercise absolute power around the world, some interesting hypotheses have appeared here, too. For example, everything that happened is connected to the events in Syria, with China looming in the background.

American strategists are supposedly worried about the increasingly close relationship between Moscow and Beijing (after becoming president of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping visited Russia on his first foreign trip) and have begun playing a complex combination by bringing the Chechens into the game. This puts the issue of Russian-American cooperation in the war on terrorism back on the agenda. The United States is beginning to show a better understanding of Russia’s position on the situation in the Caucasus, while, at the same time, Washington is distancing itself from the Syrian conflict, which has reached a stalemate with no good prospects anyway, thereby seeming to make concessions to Moscow. As a result, Russia is drawn into a new round of cooperation, China is left on the sidelines, and the United States, by distracting Russia, can increase its presence in Asia, while also guaranteeing that the two greatest Eurasian powers will not join forces against America.

Of course, this is an unofficial and by no means the only version of events, but it reflects an intellectual trend that is widespread in Russia. In a sense, this is how the complexity and diversity of today’s world is transformed in the minds of thinkers within the conservative tradition that still dominates the public scene. It is their particular attempt to rationalize the chaos that is becoming ever scarier because of its unpredictability.

Even without considering the extreme hypotheses, the parallels with 9/11 are evident. Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call President George W. Bush after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to offer help and cooperation. This surprised many people who did not expect Putin to show sympathy for America, but in fact it was an entirely logical move. First, Russia was fighting the insurgency in Chechnya, which at that time was evolving from a separatist movement into an Islamic movement. And Putin correctly calculated that in the new situation, Washington would be more likely to interpret it in just such a way, rather than as a “people fighting for freedom.” Second, in that early period Putin was much less anti-American than he is now, and he really was looking for ways to close the book on the Cold War once and for all and begin a new kind of relationship with the most influential country in the West.