INSTANT VIEW: Website says Chechen rebels declare economic war

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian rebel website posted a statement on Friday signed by Chechen fighters declaring "economic war" on Russia and claiming responsibility for a recent dam disaster and a bomb in Ingushetia.

Following is analyst reaction to the statement.

YULIA LATYNINA, OPPOSITION JOURNALIST AND WRITER

"If there were a competition in lies between this website and Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), I am not sure who would win.

"In the case of terrorist attacks, notification about who has carried out an attack usually happens at the time of the attack. The dam accident happened on Monday morning. If this website had placed the announcement half an hour before that, their claim would have been plausible."

VLADIMIR OSAKOVSKY, HEAD OF STRATEGY AND RESEARCH, UNICREDIT BANK

"(The dam disaster) looks like a regular problem with outdated infrastructure in Russia, which is actually even worse than terrorism.

"People working with the separatists need some publicity and historically they have claimed they are behind several big accidents in Russian history.

"Given this history, I would not immediately believe such claims are true."

CHRIS WEAFER, CHIEF STRATEGIST, URALSIB INVESTMENT BANK

"Most investors will see this as an opportunistic threat by the group on the back of one of these accidents and an attempt to raise general fears. "At the same time, one of the reasons why investors have a generally wary stance toward Russia, why Russia has a discount to emerging markets, is that investors are aware there is always the risk of an escalation in events in places like Ingushetia and Dagestan and other places in the south.

"It is just one of those factors that are always there in the Russia story."

ALEXEI MALASHENKO, CAUCASUS EXPERT, MOSCOW CARNEGIE CENTER THINK TANK

"I think it's propaganda. In the past, rebels have taken responsibility for a fire in Moscow's Ostankino television tower and for a mass black-out in the capital.

"It creates panic. A lot of people will believe it. It gives the federal authorities the opportunity to use the most extreme measures against Islamist extremists.

"I have visited these kind of installations and it is clear such an attack would be too difficult for them.

"I think we will never find the truth."

PAVEL FELGENHAUER, DEFENSE COMMENTATOR, NOVAYA GAZETA NEWSPAPER

"I don't buy it. This is not a car bomb. You would need to be a genius to understand what to do to create such havoc in a technical situation, to organize a chain of technical events that do not have precedent in world history.

"There is no evidence. They didn't find traces of explosives and there is no evidence in recent years of terror attacks being covered up in Putin's Russia. The Kremlin would not shy away from calling it a terror attack if that's what they thought it was.

"The situation is really bad in the North Caucasus. The authorities do not need any extra pretext for additional measures if they want to take them.

"In 2000, rebel websites said they sunk the Kursk. If anything goes wrong in Russia, they said they did it."

ALEXANDER PANKOV, TRADER, OTKRITIYE INVESTMENT BANK

"This is total nonsense, because nobody takes responsibility a week after a terrorist act.

"Of course it wouldn't be too difficult to organize a diversion at one of these high-security sites ... the issue is why would the rebels want to it? Blowing up a hydropower dam isn't realistic."

GRIGORY SHVEDOV, EDITOR ON ONLINE JOURNAL WWW.CAUCASIANKNOT.INFO

"Several times we have seen them take responsibility -- or rather someone has taken responsibility in their name -- for events where it was clear that it was very unlikely to have been involved.

"What is clear is that, if it was indeed a terrorist attack, we would not find out. It would be carefully hidden by the authorities."

(Reporting by Conor Humphries, Gleb Bryanski, Robin Paxton, Melissa Akin, Zlata Garasyuta and Olga Popova; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)