Russia warned not to use Moscow attack to intensify Ukraine war
Kyiv denies link and US says Islamists are most likely suspects as death toll reaches at least 133
BRITAIN yesterday warned Vladimir Putin not to use a deadly terror attack in Moscow as an “excuse” to intensify its war on Ukraine.
The Russian president used a speech yesterday to accuse Kyiv of trying to help four alleged gunmen escape after they unleashed a storm of bullets and bombs on unsuspecting victims in a concert hall, killing at least 130 people.
Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility shortly afterwards, while Ukraine has denied any involvement. That assessment was backed up by the United States, who warned several weeks ago that a terror attack in Moscow was imminent. Yesterday, IS released a selfie of the men it said were involved along with details of how they planned and executed the ambush at Crocus City Hall. But in a five-minute video address announcing the arrest of the perpetrators, Putin said: “They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, previously, a window had been prepared for them to cross the border.”
He also called the attackers “Nazis”, the Kremlin’s commonly used code word for Ukrainians.
A senior Whitehall security source told The Telegraph: “Putin’s desperation to put all of this on Ukraine is unsurprising, as he tries to further dupe the Russian people whilst pretending that there is no dissent within Russia. He must not use this confected connection as any sort of excuse for intensifying his illegal war in Ukraine.” Alicia Kearns, the Conservative chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: “Russian media channels are already circulating deep fake videos of Ukrainian officials in an attempt to blame Ukraine and provide Putin some defence for the war crimes he’s committing in Ukraine or worse, pretext for further atrocities.
“There is no indication of any link to Ukraine, nor any credible reason to suggest their involvement.”
Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, echoed that sentiment, saying yesterday he hoped “this terrible tragedy will not become a pretext for anyone to escalate violence and aggression”.
THE four men behind a deadly attack on a concert hall in Moscow were helped by Ukraine, Vladimir Putin claimed yesterday.
The Islamist terror group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday’s assault in which gunmen rampaged through Crocus City Hall with automatic weapons and bombs, killing at least 133 people. The United States has also attributed the attack to IS.
But in a televised speech yesterday announcing that the alleged perpetrators had been caught, the Russian president sought to tie Kyiv to the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia for years.
“All four perpetrators were detained. They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, previously, a window had been prepared for them to cross the border,” Putin said in a five-minute video address.
Putin likened the attackers to Nazis, Kremlin propaganda code for its Ukrainian enemies.“We are faced not just with a cynically planned terrorist attack, but with a prepared mass murder of defenceless people,” he said. “Like the Nazis once did, they planned to stage a show execution.”
“We will identify and punish everyone who stands behind the terrorists,” he added.
Ukraine and its Western allies were quick to deny any links to the attack, but the fear in Kyiv is that Russia will use it to escalate its aggression.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, said yesterday that Putin was seeking ways to divert blame for the attack. He said: “It’s obvious that Putin and other thugs are just trying to blame someone else.
“Their methods are always the same. We’ve seen it all before, destroyed buildings and shootings and explosions. And they always find someone else to blame.”
The US said “Ukraine had absolutely nothing to do with these events”, while Kyiv accused Russian special forces of staging the attack as a provocation.
“The Russian regime has a long history of bloody provocations by its special services,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said. “There are no red lines for Putin’s dictatorship. It is ready to kill its own citizens for political purposes.”
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Zelensky was “the only head of state crazy enough to blame Russia for the terrorist attack”.
Margarita Simonyan, the boss of one of the Kremlin’s biggest TV stations, accused Western intelligence agencies of spreading disinformation to deflect attention from Kyiv’s involvement.
“This is not Islamic State. This is khokhol,” she said, using a derogatory Russian slur for Ukrainians. “Even before the arrests, even before the names of the perpetrators, Western intelligence services began to try to convince the population that it was Islamic State.”
The head of the Russian parliament’s defence committee described Ukraine as the attack’s main “stakeholder”, while the Federal Security Service (FSB) said earlier that the assailants had “contacts” in Ukraine, without giving details.
Other officials pledged retaliation if a link between Ukraine and the terrorist attack could be proved.
Konstantin Malofeev, the Russian billionaire owner of a pro-war media group linked to the Russian Orthodox Church, said a nuclear strike should be launched against Ukraine.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, accused Ukraine and its Western allies of sponsoring attacks in Russia.
“Now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from persecution, Ukraine, the same country which for 10 years has been turned via Western liberal regimes into a centre of terrorism,” she said.
The Kommersant newspaper also quoted FSB sources as saying that they were looking for fighters linked to the pro-Ukraine Russian Volunteer Corps who they accused of dressing up – possibly with fake beards – for the attack.
Telegram channels linked to the security services released videos of four suspects captured after a car chase and reported shootout south-west of Moscow in Bryansk, close to Ukraine’s north-eastern border and Belarus.
In one of the videos, one of the captives shivers as he is held in a stress position. Speaking in poor Russian, he confesses to the attack because he had been paid “by a preacher”.
“I did it for money,” he said, gasping for breath. “I’ve only received half of it.”
Russian media reported that the suspects were from Tajikistan, a Muslim Central Asian country that borders Afghanistan, where IS is active.
Passports from Tajikistan were also reportedly found in the getaway car.
The interior ministry said all four of the alleged gunmen were “foreign nationals” but did not specify from where. Russia’s security services have said that they have arrested 11 suspects in total.
Western analysts said it was likely to have been a genuine Islamic terrorist attack and that the Kremlin was now trying to score propaganda points by deflecting from its security failings.