Rusia ruled out this Tuesday that the Islamic State group be solely responsible for the terrorist attack against a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow that caused 139 dead and directly accused Ukraine and its Western alliesalthough without providing any evidence in this regard.
“We believe that the event was prepared by radical Islamists and, naturally, the Western secret services contributed to it,” said Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), who added that Ukraine's intelligence services had a “direct relationship” with the attack.
The investigations are still underway and the emergency services concluded today the search for bodies in the rubble of the Crocus City Hall, but the Russian state machine has already passed its sentence.
“Of course, Ukraine,” Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, responded to a journalist's question: “Islamic State or Ukraine?”
Putin leads the way
The Russian president, Vladimir Putinled the way on Monday by suggesting the existence of a Ukrainian black hand after the death of 139 people, on Friday, in the city of Krasnogorsk, 20 kilometers from the heart of Moscow, in the jihadist attack.
“Who benefits?” Putin asked himself and he himself answered that Ukraine and its Western sponsors, while defending the Muslim world and doubting that Islamists commit attacks coinciding with Ramadan.
It matters little that Western intelligence services insist that the attack is the work of the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISPK).
On Tuesday, Putin also intervened before the Prosecutor's Office, urging it to do “everything necessary so that criminals receive fair punishment, as required by Russian law.”
“The criminals who committed this massacre have been arrested. Investigators are scrupulously establishing the circumstances surrounding this barbaric crime,” he stressed.
The FSB accuses Ukraine
As soon as Putin's meeting with the Prosecutor's Office ended, the head of the FSB denounced that Ukraine “participated in the instruction and training of combatants in the Middle East.”
“The bandits had the intention of fleeing across the border. Right into the territory of Ukraine. According to our preliminary operational data, they were waiting for them there (…) And I'll tell you a secret: on the other side they wanted to receive them as heroes,” he said.
He advocated declaring the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) a “terrorist organization” and considered the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirilo Budánov, a “legitimate target.”
Of course, he then admitted that Moscow has not yet been able to establish with certainty the identity of those who commissioned the attack and that all the information available to the security services is of a “general nature.”
“Broadly speaking we consider that they are involved in it,” he stressed, responding to a question about kyiv's responsibility.
Russia rejects Western cooperation
Although the Western foreign ministries warned it two weeks before about a possible terrorist attack, Russia rejects its collaboration.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov argued that, if accepted, it would “clearly contain double standards” in order to “promote” the version that Ukraine “has nothing to do” with the attack.
“I am sure that we can take care of this investigation ourselves,” he said at a press conference.
In this regard, Bórtnikov admitted that the United States warned them about a possible attack in the capital, but added that he would have liked the information “to have been more concrete.”
He recalled that the same thing happened in 2017, when a suicide attack claimed the lives of 16 people in the Saint Petersburg subway.
Zelensky returns the coin to Putin
Ukraine today again rejected any involvement in the attack, a confusion to which the Belarusian leader, Alexandr Lukashenko, contributed by ensuring that, initially, the terrorists were heading towards his country, but then “they turned around.”
“Putin has spoken to himself again, which has again been broadcast on television. Once again, he accused Ukraine. Sick and cynical beast,” said Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian president.
In Putin's mind “everyone is a terrorist except himself, even though he has been fueling terror for two decades,” he noted.
Meanwhile, the Russian Justice today ordered the arrest of the Ukrainian Vasil Maliuk, head of the SBU since July 2022.
According to the Russian newspaper 'Kommersant', the reason is the attack carried out in October 2022 with a truck bomb against the Crimean bridge, which seriously damaged the key infrastructure for communication between continental Russia and the annexed peninsula. EFE
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