Terror threat to Sochi Olympics persists, experts say

The probability of terror acts and provocations during the Winter Olympics in Sochi cannot be ruled out, said the politicians, human rights activists, lawyers and journalists, questioned by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. According to their answers, at the maximum concentration of anti-terrorist forces in Sochi and its vicinities, other regions of Russia remain vulnerable.

"All power agencies are just obsessed with the Olympic safety, because the Olympiad is the personal image-making project of our President Vladimir Putin," said Irina Gordienko, a journalist of the "Novaya Gazeta".

Ruslan Martagov, a political analyst and a consultant of the Fund "Antiterror", said that in the very area of the Olympic Games "it would be difficult to commit a terror act due to the density of secret agents", but terror acts are not excluded in other dwelling settlements.

According to Alexander Cherkasov, the Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", the year 2013 has not ended on December 31 – it will be over only in March 2014, after the Olympics. According to his story, the most unfavourable events for power agents may happen, if new people, not registered in their files, join the underground.

As to the very area of the Olympic Games, it is guarded, as noted by Alexander Cherkasov, by "means of brute force."

Let us note here that since January 7 Sochi is under the most stringent security measures in the history of Olympic Games. Lev Levinson, an expert at the Institute of Human Rights, believes that the Krasnodar Territory is in fact under the state of emergency.