DISINFO: Kyiv's involvement in the Crocus terrorist attack is evident
SUMMARY
Kyiv's involvement in the March 22 terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall is evident. The Ukrainian imprint is visible not only in that attack, but also in many others that have been perpetrated in Russia. Ukraine has become an openly terrorist state, it has been terrorising citizens at home and outside its borders for 10 years.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative portraying Ukraine as a terrorist state. The claim was made in connection with the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow. By trying to link the Crocus terrorist attack to Ukraine, pro-Kremlin media are trying to stoke support and gain legitimacy for Russia's ongoing illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in the assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State group have claimed responsibility.
US officials have intelligence that the Islamic State group's Afghan affiliate IS-Khorasan is responsible for the Moscow attack. “ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
The US was legally obliged to warn Moscow earlier in March 2024 of a possible attack in Russia aimed at large gatherings before issuing a public advisory to citizens in the country. As explained by ABC news:
"The United States shared those advance intelligence indications under a tenet of the U.S. intelligence community called the “duty to warn," which obliges U.S. intelligence officials to lean toward sharing knowledge of a dire threat if conditions allow. That holds whether the targets are allies, adversaries or somewhere in between".
The alert was dismissed as "provocative", "blackmail" and an "attempt to intimidate, destabilise our country" by Putin. He said: “I’ll remind you of recent, let’s say directly, provocative statements of certain official Western structures about potential terror attacks in Russia. All of this looks like obvious blackmail and an attempt to intimidate, destabilise our country”.
In a recent development, news have appeared that Iran had warned Moscow a few days before of an imminent attack by ISIS based on information obtained from arrested ISIS terrorists in Iran.
Even Putin himself acknowledged late on 25 March that Islamists were committing the attack.
The article also contains unfounded claims that Ukraine was staging or conducting attacks against the civilian population in Donbas. This is a prominent example of pro-Kremlin disinformation to justify the full-scale Russian invasion of and war in Ukraine. See myth one, in our article Thirteen myths about Russia’s war against Ukraine exposed.
The myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine has been the cornerstone of Russian disinformation about the country since the very beginning of the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests, when it was used to discredit the pro-European popular uprising in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine's foreign policy. It has been widely addressed here.
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