Russian officials on Wednesday continued their attempts to blame the bloody Crocus City Hall terrorist attack on Ukraine and the United States instead of the Islamic State, even though ISIS has taken responsibility for the massacre and Russia reportedly received warnings of an impending ISIS attack from both U.S. intelligence and its allies in Iran.
“They are trying to impose it on us that the terrorist act was committed not by the Kiev regime but by supporters of the radical Islamic ideology, possibly, by members of the Afghan branch of ISIL,” Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev told a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Wednesday.
ISIL is another name for the Islamic State. The branch of the Islamist terrorist organization that took responsibility for the March 22 massacre in Moscow is the Islamic State Khorasan Province, usually known as ISIS-K.
“However, it is far more important to promptly establish who is the mastermind and the sponsor of this horrific crime. Its traces lead to Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrushev continued.
A view shows the burnt-out Crocus City Hall concert venue in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, Russia, on March 26, 2024. (NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP)
“Everyone is well aware that the Kiev regime is not independent and is fully controlled by the United States. It has to be borne in mind that ISIL, and Al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups were created by Washington,” he raved, repeating a favorite talking point of the Russian regime.
Petrushev claimed Ukraine has been “sheltering ISIS militants on its territory for a long time and is using them for its own purposes.”
“The perpetrators of this mass shooting and also their accomplices were arrested upon their attempt to cross the Russian state border where the Ukrainian side prepared a window for their escape,” he said.
“The terrorist attack was well organized and was accompanied by extensive, pre-orchestrated coverage by Western media in the right tone for them,” he accused.
Russian officials have yet to reveal a shred of the evidence they claim to have amassed of Ukrainian involvement in the Moscow attack. The alleged Ukrainian “window” for the terrorists to escape is based on an unsubstantiated claim that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin made two days after the attack. Putin said the four gunmen were taken into custody while attempting to flee into Ukraine.
This combination of pictures, created on March 24, 2024, shows (clockwise from top left) Rachabalizoda Saidakrami, Dalerdjon (alternatively spelled Dalerdzhon) Barotovich Mirzoyev, Muhammadsobir Fayzov, and Shamsidin Fariduni, who are suspected of taking part in the attack of a concert hall in Moscow, Russia. (TATYANA MAKEYEVAOLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty Images)
Both the U.S. and Ukrainian governments insist there was “no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” as White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson put it.
Putin grudgingly admitted “radical Islamists” perpetrated the atrocity, but his regime continues frantically searching for ways to link the attack to the U.S. and Ukraine, presumably for political purposes, not least of which is forestalling Russian public outrage over Putin’s gigantic and brutally oppressive security apparatus somehow allowing ISIS to murder more than 130 people in Moscow.
Backed into a corner by revelations that Iran, as well as the United States, warned them an attack was coming, plus shocking details of how poorly protected the Crocus City Hall concert was, Russian officials stammered that the advance warnings were “too vague” for them to take action.
On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tried to claim that the highly detailed advance warning that U.S. intelligence provided was merely intelligence chatter that Putin and his inner circle were unaware of.
People lay flowers and light candles next to the Crocus City Hall, outside Moscow, Russia, on March 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
“This is not our area of expertise, as such information exchange usually takes place through the channels of special services, that is information is passed from service to service,” Peksov said. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a public alert about a possible impending terrorist attack the day after the CIA privately warned Russian officials.
Putin gave a speech to security officials three days before the Moscow attack in which he admitted he was aware of the American warning but dismissed it as an attempt to “intimidate and destabilize our society.”
