How safe is Sochi? Or more to the point, how dangerous will Russia's Black Sea citadel be for competitors and spectators in the Winter Olympic Games now less than six weeks away?

Pre-Games scaremongering has been customary since Munich 1972 but events of the past few days in Volgograd, where terror attacks by suicide bombers have killed more than 30 people and left scores horrifically injured, have a brought a disturbing sense of reality that the danger will be clear and present when Europe's most prestigious sporting event of 2014 begins on February 7.

These tragic incidents, and a string of others which have preceded them, understandably raise fears of further violence before and during the Games, which President Vladimir Putin has vowed, will be the most memorable in history.

Hopefully this will not be for the wrong reason.

An international security expert of our acquaintance once privately volunteered the notion that after Munich there would be little likelihood of future terrorist attacks on major sports events such as the Olympics again as they would be too obvious and well-protected.

Last year's Boston Marathon and the Centennial Olympic Park pipe bombing at Atlanta 1996 scuppered this theory.

Volgograd is a transport hub for many travellers en route to Sochi ©AFP/Getty Images


Now Islamic separatist movements have sworn to disrupt Sochi 2014, presenting a direct challenge to Putin's authority.

Putin was first elected after winning popularity for a war against Chechnyan rebels, but attacks by Islamist militants whose insurgency is rooted in the war have clouded his time in power and now confront him with his mightiest political challenge.

You can be certain he will do everything in his power - which is considerable - to prevent Sochi from becoming another Munich. Or worse.

Worryingly for him is that Volgograd is a transport hub for many travellers en route to Sochi, and equally ominously, is a venue for another of the autocratic President's influentially acquired sporting showpieces - the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Some 425 miles (690km) north of Sochi, Volgograd was known as Stalingrad in the Soviet era and was a symbol of Russian resistance during the Second World War.

In October, it was targeted by a female suicide bomber with links to Islamists fighting federal forces in Russia's volatile North Caucasus.

Such female "martyrs" are often referred to in Russia as "Black Widows" - women who seek to avenge the deaths of their family members in North Caucasus fighting by targeting civilians.

Volgograd was also the target of a female suicide bomber in October ©AFP/Getty Images


Militants are seeking to impose an Islamist state throughout Russia's North Caucasus. Their leader, Doku Umarov, has ordered his foot soldiers to target civilians outside the region and disrupt the Games. In a video, posted online in July he urged followers to use "maximum force" to prevent the staging of the Olympics and Paralympics.

Even Russian security chiefs believe it is virtually impossible that Sochi will escape without some sort of incident.

Though they insist it is more probable that this will be focused elsewhere in southern Russia where there are easier targets than a fortified venue that will feature the most intimidating security cordon of any previous sports event. More intense than either Beijing 2008 or London 2012.

A veritable Iron Curtain will be draped around the pleasant resort that lies in uncomfortably close proximity to the violence ravaging North Caucasus regions such as Dagestan and Chechnya on a daily basis.

The Government is already preparing to restrict non-essential access to Sochi from next week with rigid security checks on all traffic and a ban all non-resident cars from a wide area around the city.

However, so far there have been few indications of foreign teams or fans thinking of cancelling their attendance out of safety concerns, inevitably apart from the Australians, whose Government always seems first in the queue when it comes to expressing security worries.

Sochi 2014 is said to be Vladimir Putin's pet project ©AFP/Getty Images


The Sochi Games' success carries heavy political overtones for the Kremlin amid its efforts to use patriotism to mobilise support for Putin's regime.

Yet in a perverse way the Volgograd atrocities have taken the heat off Putin's human rights record which was seen as an impediment to a globally-acclaimed Olympics.

The canny President, conscious that his country is risking opprobrium at a time when its economy needs investment, apparently effected a pre-Games amnesty with a series of gestures transparently made to appease an anxious International Olympic Committee (IOC) and allay concerns of boycotts and demonstrations disfiguring the event.

These have included the release from jail of the Pussy Riot feminist punk protest group, dropping charges against Greenpeace activists and the unexpected pardoning of his long-time imprisoned political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

One of the freed members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, said on her return to Moscow that their release was blatantly designed to improve Russia's image before February's Games, which she called Putin's pet project.

Their success is a matter of "masculine pride" for him, she said, crediting the threat of a boycott for her group's early release from a Siberian labour camp. "The thaw has nothing to do with humanism. The authorities only did this under pressure from Russian and Western society."

It was a shrewdly timed exercise in damage limitation by Putin. Few world leaders are more aware of the power of sport in global politics than the former KGB officer and judo black belt.

But the political controversy is not likely to go away. The Presidents of the United States, France, Germany, Canada and Belgium say they will not attend the Games, though no one specifies that this is in protest at Russia's new anti-gay laws.

Pointedly, however, Barack Obama has nominated three openly gay sports personalities, Billie Jean King, Caitlin Cahow and Brian Boitano, to the official White House delegation.

At 1,661 billion roubles Sochi 2014 will be the most expensive Olympics
in history ©Sochi 2014


It has now been confirmed that British Prime Minister David Cameron will not go to Sochi, though the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, and Sports Minister, Helen Grant, who both have responsibilities for equality, will be there to support Team GB.

Downing Street insists that Cameron's absence is not a statement about Russia's stance on gay rights. "He doesn't think that boycotts and grand gestures achieve much," said an aide.

The new Russian law signed this year banning the distribution of so-called propaganda about non-traditional sexual relationships to minors raised concerns about whether gay athletes and spectators would face discrimination at the Olympics.

However, it is believed Putin has intervened to backtrack on his Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko's statement that the law could be used during the Games to prosecute anyone voicing support for homosexuality.

Putin said last week that Russia's main responsibility as host was to ensure equality for all: "The main thing for us is the good organisation of these competitions, the creation of equal terms for all athletes."

These Olympics are clearly part of Putin's desire to highlight the international strength of Russia and his own status as the world's most powerful leader. To ensure the success of the event in the Caucasus mountain-fringed resort that is Putin's favourite summer retreat, as it once was Stalin's, his cabinet last week approved an extra 1.6 billion roubles (£30 million/$50 million/€362 million) in subsidies for the Games, whose overall cost of 1,661 billion roubles (£31 billion/$51 billion/€37 billion) makes them the most expensive Olympics - winter or summer - in history.

But preventing Russia's 2014 snow show from becoming a cold war that could prove a damning prelude to their hosting of the 2018 World Cup is obviously a price Putin believes is worth paying, financially and politically.

Will the Black Widows of Chechnya make it an even higher one?

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games.