General Discussion

A lot of organized crime has quasi-official protection in Russia. In Ukraine, a lot of the cross-border covert incursions were hand in hand with some sort of organized crime--either they used the same routes, had the same facilitators, or just out and out collaborated. Once you're in bed with Russian organized crime, you were in bed with the Russian-speaking org crime in the Donbas.

Internal Security with, as the Estonians are saying, border control would be dealing with this along the Est border.

If the IS guy had some information, if he was a threat, if he was just sufficiently annoying, then this would accomplish two things: Deal with the immediate threat and also let them know to stay away. That they can disable the border security and with relative impunity and some official cover do what they want. This is a cultural trait: with power comes freedom, not "svoboda," freedom from others' limits and restrictions, but volya, the ability to do what you want. I often think of "volya" as being more akin to imperial caprice. Svoboda is freedom from being a serf, for instance; volya is the freedom to beat your wife.