Anti-Russian Jihadist propaganda and Jihadist groups in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine

In the “Jihadist galaxy” there are numerous anti-Russian organisations. This is reflected in propaganda and the emergence of many groups operating against Russia. Even in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, jihadist organisations have expressed themselves.

As far as the media aspect of propaganda is concerned, the media of jihadist organisations have often placed Russia at the centre of their propaganda in recent years, both because of the oppression of the Muslim component in Chechnya and, more generally, in the Northern Caucasus, and because of Russia's active role in Muslim-majority areas in Africa and the Middle East, in particular Syria and Libya, and recently in the Sahel. Jihadist organisations are able and willing to often exploit geopolitical events in an instrumental way for their propaganda, even if they do not involve them directly. Jihadist propaganda is instrumentally exploiting the ongoing war to confirm, as they have already done, that Russia is an oppressor.

As far as the purely operational aspect is concerned, on the other hand, jihadist organisations could re-emerge in operational theatres, such as the Northern Caucasus (Chechnya in particular) and Central Asia, where their operations are almost absent or relegated to sleeper cells. However, if the war in Ukraine were to drag on for several months, they might decide to strike, taking advantage of the Russian military commitment on the Ukrainian front to militarily re-propose themselves in the aforementioned areas or in the various African and Middle Eastern theatres to strike at Russian interests or its military, as has already happened recently in Syria.