"Based on extensive fieldwork in one village in the North Caucasus, Novaya Gazeta reporter Elena Milashina has concluded that the “Russian special services have controlled” the flow of jihadists into Syria, where they have lately joined up not only with ISIS but other radical Islamist factions. In other words, Russian officials are adding to the ranks of terrorists which the Russian government has deemed a collective threat to the security and longevity of its dictatorial ally on the Mediterranean, Bashar al-Assad. It may sound paradoxical—helping the enemy of your friend—but the logic is actually straightforward: Better the terrorists go abroad and fight in Syria than blow things up in Russia. Penetrating and co-opting terrorism also has a long, well-attested history in the annals of Chekist tradecraft. ....... Kalugin noted that Russian intelligence has a long, ignominious history of “pushing forward the more extremist elements and use their facilities to do the most damage to a local population.” This was the strategy, after all, during the early 90's when insurgents such as Shamil Basayev were co-opted by Russia’s military intelligence (GRU) in order to vitiate the secular or democratic Chechen movement. Basayev was a useful tool for the Kremlin—at least until the FSB (probably) assassinated him in 2006—because he wasn’t really interested in secession from the Russian Federation; he wanted to establish an “emirate” in the Caucasus. His carnage accomplished two things at once: It cast a pall on the legitimate separatist struggle and offered a wag-the-dog national security justification for a scorched-earth Russian counterinsurgency, which did nothing short of level Grozny."