DISINFO: Moscow has evidence of the connection between the Crocus City terrorists and Ukraine
SUMMARY
The investigation has confirmed data that the perpetrators of the [Crocus City Hall] terrorist attack received significant amounts of money and cryptocurrency from Ukraine, which were used in the preparation of the crime.
RESPONSE
This disinformation story is part of a wider campaign by Russian officials and media - including by Vladimir Putin himself - to baselessly blame Ukraine and other actors for the attack.
There is no evidence of Ukrainian involvement in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack. Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in the assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.
As terrorism experts pointed out, there is no question regarding the authenticity of the statement, made by Amaq, the official Islamic State propaganda media. The Islamic State released multiple evidence, including a gruesome video of the Moscow attack filmed by the attackers themselves, leaving little doubt about its responsibility.
The US was legally obliged to warn Moscow earlier this month 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.
More debunking false claims are available in English and Russian.
See similar disinformation cases claiming that ISIS claiming responsibility for Moscow attack looks like a fake, that Anti-Russian actors using neo-Nazis in Kyiv may be involved in Crocus attack, that Ukrainian official admitted Ukraine’s involvement in the terrorist attack in Crocus City, Kyiv may be involved in the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, that Ukraine is resorting to terrorism by attacking nuclear sites in Russia, that Foreigners from terrorist organisations are fighting for Ukraine, that Kyiv uses the same methods as ISIS to recruit children, that Ukraine is a terrorist state and the West is to blame for guiding Kyiv, or that The Kyiv regime is a global terrorist threat.