DISINFO: The USA is perfectly aware of Kyiv’s connection to the terrorist attack in Moscow
SUMMARY
All thinking people understand that it is not the first time that the Americans have used warnings about an upcoming terrorist attack in order to shift responsibility for the bloody chaos that resulted from their policies. The US authorities are perfectly aware that Kyiv stands behind the [Moscow] attack. A clear proof of this fact is the speed with which the White House threw itself into disproving the Ukrainian connection to this incident.
RESPONSE
This disinformation story is part of a wider campaign by Russian officials and media - including by 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 has 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 in March 2024 of a possible attack in Russia aimed at large gatherings before issuing an alert 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”.
Iran also 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 had committed 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.