{"blocks":[{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Last week, 34 people died after two bombs — one in a rail station, the other on a trolleybus — exploded in Volgograd. Terrorist attacks are, sadly, nothing new for Russia. But these murders had a particular motive behind them: Vladimir Putin’s arrogance."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Six hundred miles to the southwest is Sochi, the location of next month’s Winter Olympics."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The official line behind Sochi’s nomination as host city is that it has everything: mountains, snow, the sea, all wrapped around a comfortable resort city."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"But its choice had more to do about politics than location, and its selection will have deadly consequences for Russia and possibly the entire world."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Russians have been distrustful and envious of the west ever since the pope didn’t come to Kingdom of Rus’ aide against Khan and the Golden Horde centuries ago. The Christian West refused to help in order to teach the breakaway Orthodox Church a lesson, as well as to weaken Rus’ power. The invasion created a 200-year lag in Russian development compared to Renaissance Europe."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Since then, Russians have felt the need to top the West. From wanting Moscow to be the new Rome after the fall of Byzantium (hence the adopted royal name Romanov) or the materialistic worship you now see in Moscow and other cities, Russians want to show they are just as good or better as Europe and America."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Putin has spent a staggering $51 billion — the most ever for an Olympics, even topping the much larger 2008 Summer Games in Beijing — to prove Sochi and his nation. Bloomberg Businessweek calculated the cost at $520 million an event."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"But why Sochi? It would seem a bad location, just a short hop from Georgia and Chechnya."}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/sochi-1.jpg?w=300"},"caption":"People walk along the seafront near the Olympic Park in Adler near Sochi in December. The site of the Winter Olympics was chosen for political reasons, not because of its location.Reuters"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"In a short but decisive conflict in 2008, the South Ossetia War, Russia invaded its former satellite Georgia in order to teach the newly independent country a lesson; you will not oppress your ethnic Russian population. Nor will you leave our sphere of influence and join the West. Russian troops remain in the contested areas."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Russia also fought two recent, brutal wars in Chechnya in which they used slash-and-burn techniques to overcome the independence movement. The conflict there between the Islamist population and the Tsarist Christian or Soviet occupations has been raging for several centuries."}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/01/sochi-3.jpg?w=300"},"caption":"Chechen militant leader Doku UmarovAP/INTELCENTER"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"The Chechen Islamist leader, Doku Umarov, threatened in July to use maximum force to destroy the Sochi Olympics and the infidel invaders “dancing on our ancestors graves.” Umarov and his disciples want to kill civilians for maximum effect. These are the terrorists who had no qualm killing 400 woman and children at the Beslan school massacre in 2004. Not to mention the airport bombing at Domodedovo, the Moscow theater bombing, and many other attacks. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston bombers, supposedly visited a region of Chechnya and possibly received terrorist training prior to the Boston Marathon attack."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"With Sochi, Putin spit in the faces of rebels in Georgia and Chechnya. He wanted to show the world that Russia is all-powerful in the region. He wanted to show that he is not worried about the West’s concern over the Russian occupation of Georgia. He wanted to show the Russian empire is being reborn and that he has conquered Chechnya and pacified the area; the former Soviet Republics should take heed! He wanted to show he is not concerned about terrorism."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"It was a political decision — the consequences to the Olympics be damned."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"

1 of 10

\"\" — \n Interior Ministry members stand guard in front of the train station where a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the entrance hall of a Russian train station, killing at least 14 people in the second deadly attack within three days as the country prepares to host the Winter Olympics.Reuters/Sergei Karpov

\"\" — \n Police officers at the scene of a suicide attack at a railway station in Volgograd. A female suicide bomber detonated an explosive device killing at least 14 people after she had been noticed by a policeman, reports say.ZUMAPRESS.com/Dmitry Rogulin

\"\" — \n Russian security forces stand guard outside a train station following a suicide attack in Volgograd. A female suicide bomber killed 14 people when she blew herself up at the train station. Getty Images/Vladimir Pakhomov

\"\" — \n Russian police investigators collect evidence following a suicide attack at a train station in Volgograd. Getty Images/Stringer

\"\" — \n A victim's body lies outside an entrance to Volgograd railway station. 14 people were killed and about 36 injured when a female suicide bomber blew herself up. EPA/STR

\"\" — \n The covered bodies of victims lie on the ground as Russian security personnel inspect the scene of a suicide attack at a train station in Volgograd.Getty Images/Stringer

\"\" — \n Investigators work near the body of a victim after an explosion outside of a train station in Volgograd. Reuters/Sergei Karpov

"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Now the world is stuck with it. Security around the Olympic venue may be strong enough to prevent a terrorist incident inside the compound or the sports facilities themselves. But Putin cannot effectively secure all of the transportation networks leading to Sochi, hence the attacks on Volgograd, a major connecting hub into the Olympic area."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Volgograd, formally Stalingrad, also holds a special place in the heart of the Russian people as the place where the Nazi advance into Russia was halted. This terrorist target selection was a definite finger in the eye of Putin."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Putin has worked hard to soften the Russian government’s image prior to these games. He has released political prisoners, including Pussy Riot and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He released the Greenpeace activists who had been jailed for months for storming a Russian oil rig in the Arctic."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"But by placing the Olympics at Sochi, he has given the terrorists a world stage to rage against his policies, to show that the nation isn’t as stable as he wants to admit. And if the terrorists are successful, it won’t just be Russia that pays the price."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"L. Todd Wood, a former special-operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street trader, is the author of the thriller “Currency” and a contributor to the Moscow Times; LToddWood.com"}}]}

L. Todd Wood

NypLToddWood@RoundtableIO

Terrorists, Putin and the hubris of Sochi