When the first of two terrorist bombings hit the Russian city of Volgograd, a wave of commentary and accusations spread across the Russian blogosphere. Many blamed Saudi Arabia, although it is unclear on what basis they did. According to them, Saudi Arabia is behind the Islamic underground in the Northern Caucasus, and the terrorist acts were revenge for Russia’s principled and consistent stand on the Syrian issue. One of the most popular commentaries gave a more detailed explanation: Allegedly, Riyadh was vexed by two failed visits to Moscow by the head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. He was not able to buy the Kremlin, so now the Saudis were making a point.

No evidence to support such speculation was offered, and no official pronouncements from which one might draw such an inference were ever made. True, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminded us that the explosions in Volgograd and the Middle East were organized by the same people. But that pronouncement was more likely made along the lines of establishing “international terrorism” as a phenomenon, which was common in the discussions of 10 years ago. So the rumors of Saudi Arabia’s participation were never confirmed. In other words, those rumors do not reflect reality, but rather how it is perceived. The Russian collective consciousness and internal processes, especially those related to the threat of Islamic extremism, are closely connected to foreign events.

The Russian authorities, which from the very beginning were not enchanted with the Arab Spring, have always explained their caution with fears that the region would become Islamized. Unlike most Western commentators, who saw in the stirrings in the Middle East highly promising beginnings of democracy, Moscow was certain that the only beneficiary of Arab democracy would be even more radical Islamic groups, fused together, well-organized and standing in solid opposition to the previous regime.

The Kremlin’s support of authoritarian leaders was to no small degree conditioned by its aspiration to maintain the regimes that were not only secular but also, according to their own ideology, stood in opposition to all types of Islamic influence. From that perspective, deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, deposed Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were optimal rulers. And many in Russia sincerely could not understand why the United States, during George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s presidencies, was destroying or helping destroy those particular leaders.