Report: 5 months on - The moscow attack and UNSC Moral Relativism

This report and analysis was produced by S. Levit in collaboration with the Pinsker Centre. The views found in this report reflect those of the author.

Crocus City Hall, Moscow.

It has now been five months since the attack on Crocus City Hall, Moscow. One of the deadliest attacks in modern Russian history, the incident claimed the lives of 145 innocents and left many more wounded. It has also now been nine months since the October 7th attacks, the deadliest terrorist attack in Israeli history. This report provides a comparative exploration of the United Nations Security Council’s disparate response to these attacks against the civilian populations of Moscow and Southern Israel. Examination reveals a perpetual moral discrepancy in the UNSC’s approach to terrorist attacks waged against civilians of Israel, and thus the Council’s cardinal failure to remain steadfast in its role to fortify international law and bolster regional security, whilst thwarting the ever-increasing threat of terrorism across the globe.  

The attack in Crocus City Hall, Moscow claimed the lives of at least 143 civilians, marks one of the deadliest terror attacks in modern-Russian history, alongside the Beslan School Siege (2004), the Moscow Metro Bombings (2010) and the Domodedovo International Airport Bombing (2011). Each of these attacks involved the massacre of civilians, some additionally including the abduction of hostages, for example, the Beslan School onslaught of 2004, witnessed the murder of 314 hostages, including 186 children. 

A significant number of suicide bombings and mass shootings within Russia have been affiliated with Islamist insurgents from the North Caucasus region, as a result of the near-century long separatist war, between Chechnya and Russia. The Kremlin’s primary radicalist threats, alongside growing fundamentalist insurrection from Chechnya, originate from the tumultuous republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. The ethno-nationalists and jihadist militants operating in this region regard Russian rule as an occupying force, which they seek to replace with an Islamist regime.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the deadly ambush at the concert hall in the Russian capital; four suspects from the neighbouring region of Tajikistan were incarcerated for allegedly executing the assault. Tajikistan's capital city of Dushanbe, just a few hours drive from Afghanistan, has been cited as an alleged access corridor for the increasing influence of the Taliban, since their insurrection in 2021, over impoverished Tajik communities and migrant workers from Central Asia. Armed and suicide attacks in Iran (August 2023, January 2024), as well as the strike at a Catholic Church in Turkey, (January 2024) have all been reportedly linked to Tajik militants.

The Response

The UN Security Council staunchly condemned the barbarity that took place at the music concert in Moscow. The onslaught instigated with the objective of causing grievous harm to defenceless civilians has been rightly decried internationally. The same Security Council and players within the international community have, however,  failed to apply this sentiment in castigating the Islamist massacre that recently took place at the Nova music event, in Southern Israel. This  failure was pointedly raised by Israel’s representative, Gilad Erdan, at the UNSC assembly on March 25th, 2024. Erdan expressed profound distress that the Council had refused to condemn the intricately planned and brutally executed attack on the desert peace festival, which saw the mutilation and murder of nearly 400 concert-goers and the later capture of 240 Israeli men, women and children as hostages, perpetrated by Hamas and PIJ terrorists.

The Double Standard                   

The UNSC’s primary role to enforce global commitment to humanitarian law and maintain international peace and security is entirely subverted in assessing the starkly distinct approaches to the fundamentalist assaults on civilian populations in both Russia and Israel. The Council’s adoption of the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages in 1979, and the later, unanimous ratification of Resolution 638, marked a critical turning point; entrenching the Council’s capacity to deter and where necessary, intervene, during crises involving hostage-taking.

Resolution 638 espoused two significant clauses; 1) expressing the “grave concern” and “unequivocal condemnation” of civilian abduction, in its veritable violation of human rights and international law, 2) the demand for “the immediate safe release of all hostages and abducted persons, wherever and by whomever they are being held”. This position, stipulating the “deeply disturbed” and egregious nature of hostage-taking has since been applied, for example, in 2014, in response to the case of Chobok, Nigeria, wherein the armed kidnapping of nearly 300 female school-children was perpetrated by the West-African Jihadist faction, Boko Haram. The UNSC swiftly denounced this barbarism, stating: 

“The members of the Security Council expressed their profound outrage at and condemned in the strongest terms the abduction of 276 schoolgirls on 14 April in Chibok, Nigeria.. They demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all abducted girls still in captivity…The members of the Security Council strongly condemned all abuses of human rights and, where applicable, violations of international humanitarian law, including those involving sexual and gender-based violence, abductions and attacks…The members of the Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of its motivation”.

Although the assault of October 7th against Israeli citizens has been recorded as the most lethal terrorist attack per capita by CSIS and the third deadliest since 1970, compared by Israeli officials to the violent campaign launched by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the UNSC has fallen short of expressing the aforementioned grave concern or unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’ genocidal incursion, notably, the abduction of children and elderly civilians from their homes, as well as the multitude of cases of sexual, gender-based violence, including rape and ritualistic torture, recorded and admitted by captured terrorists under interrogation, as an effort to “dirty” Israeli women. 

The Council’s 2014 statement on Boko Haram proclaimed the “criminal and unjustifiable” nature of terrorism, “regardless of its motivation”. Likewise, the UNSC denounced the “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” in Moscow, reaffirming their stance that “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security”. However, shortly after October 7th, the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, asserted that Hamas’ ambush “did not happen in a vacuum”. This statement, pointing to ongoing accusations that Israeli policies and security measures promote the maltreatment of the Arab populus, hardly adheres to the sentiment of 2014, where “regardless of motivation”, there exists no justification for the targeting, kidnapping and slaughter of civilians. Guterres’ statement also fails to condemn the ongoing abuse and radicalisation of Arab citizens under Hamas rule, including the violent subversion of political opponents and militarisation of minors. Rather, Guterres’ response promotes the libellous contention that solely the Jewish State holds accountability for instability in a region plagued with a millennium of volatility and conflict, as well as proselytising the notion that Israel alone bears responsibility for the facilitation of peaceful relations. 

To further accentuate the UNSC’s diplomatic and ethical inadequacy, the Council’s recent vote in favour of a ceasefire is not conditioned on the release of hostages nor the disposal of Hamas as the dominating political and military force in Gaza. This verdict comes as agencies such as UN Women and the UN Relief and Works Agency have been exposed for a comparable level of moral bankruptcy. The former postponed any decisive condemnation of the sexual violence against Israeli women and girls during the October 7th incursion, for over two months following the attack. Whilst the revelation of the latter’s direct employment of over 450 Hamas militants within their ‘relief’ agencies and over 12 staff actively participating in the October massacre, only adds to years of exposing evidence surrounding UNRWA’s internal complicity and cooperation with terror factions presiding over Gaza. 

The UNSC’s response fuels Hamas’ objectives to remain in power, rebuild their terror infrastructure and embolden its mediaeval ideology that culminates in bloody assaults on innocent civilians inside Israel’s sovereign territory, as well as exploiting the people and resources within Gaza, including tens of millions in annual donations, to fuel incessant terror campaigns, thereby fatally undermining the security of both populations. 

Conclusion
The discrepancy between the Council’s response to the direct incursion on civilian populations in both Russia and Israel, signifies a moral relativism that serves to perpetuate the cyclical violence that shapes the conflict and assures future instability in the region. The UN’s complicity in granting terrorist syndicates an escapeway, offering a resolution that protects their military capabilities, without sacrificing territorial dominance or the bargaining chip afforded to them by their criminal apprehension of Israeli civilians, indicates at best, a distinct misunderstanding, or at worst, a wilful ignorance of the dynamics at play within the region. The UN’s negligence regarding the extent of radicalist influences, indicated, for example, by the continued funding of the agencies operating within and subjugated by Islamist factions, remains an asset only to the assailants, whilst simultaneously signifying a clear trivialisation of the geo-political ambitions of jihadist regimes and the state-sponsors of terrorism that continue to disrupt and destabilise progress in the region. The global ramifications of reinforcing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s terror proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, is undoubtedly not limited to the defilement of only Israel’s security. As the attacks on Crocus City Hall remind us of the advancing influence of fundamentalism in Russia’s provinces, it should thus not be dismissed as an ever-growing and intensifying threat in the Middle East