For a leader to fail to act on an intelligence tip is bad, but to angrily reject what turns out to be an accurate tip would be career-ending in a democracy. Russia is anything but, but the freshly “re-elected” Putin is still stuck for who to criticize.
The Russian intelligence service has at least acknowledged that their American counterparts passed along warnings of an attack, the information was “of a general nature, without specifics,” according to the Russia state media agency TASS. The US has said that an attack was likely, and singled out music concerts as a likely target. There was no date or location but Putin’s critics (most now exist digitally or in exile) can ask why security was not increased. And, given that the Kremlin has decreed that these Western tip offs were nonsense, whether security were likely to be increased.
For his part, the newly-elected Member of Parliament for Rochdale George Galloway has been considering the idea that the US, not ISIS, was behind the attack. He’s not alone. Pro-Kremlin talking heads have already started to disparage the US version of events, with one, the journalist and former Putin advisor Sergei Markov fueling the conspiracy theory that “the CIA lies all the time.” Margarita Simonyan, the sulfurous editor-in-chief of the state-controlled broadcaster RT, went a step further, saying on Telegram:“This was not ISIS. This was the Ukrainians. And the fact that, even before any arrests, before faces or names were known, the western intelligence services took it upon themselves to convince everyone that it was ISIS just exposes their guilty consciences.”
We can now expect the Kremlin to deflect; Ukraine has already been dragged into the fallout. Overnight, the Russian authorities detained two suspects in a car a few miles from the border with Belarus and Ukraine. The FSB, Russia’s security service and successor to the KGB, is claiming that the suspects “had relevant contacts on the Ukrainian side.”
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has angrily rejected US assurances that Kyiv had no hand in the attack. Unless Washington had proof they were willing to share with Russia, they didn’t have the right to “indulge” Kyiv in that way.
The branch of ISIS that has claimed responsibility is based in Afghanistan and has reportedly been fixated on Russia for several years. Counterterrorism analysts have asserted that the branch has repeatedly accused the Kremlin of “having Muslim blood in its hands.” In their tirades they have referenced Moscow’s decade-long occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, the two wars waged against Chechnya between 1994 and 2009 aimed at squashing any idea of separatism in the Muslim republic, and helping Bashar al-Assad repress the Islamist uprising in Syria since 2015. ISIS has claimed responsibility for other attacks in Russia such as the 2017 bombing on the St. Petersburg metro which claimed the lives of fourteen victims, as well as several other smaller incidents in 2019, in which just one victim lost their life.
Some 115 people are now feared dead in the attack with many more still in hospital receiving treatment. One of the members of the rock band Picnic, who were due to perform at Crocus City Hall Friday night, is reportedly amongst the missing. The enormous blaze that engulfed the music venue took the whole night to extinguish and has reduced the building to a burnt-out shell. Russian social media is full of eyewitness accounts circulating on Telegram, groups of bodies have been found in some of the venue’s toilets and emergency stairwells. Lines of Muscovites rushing to donate blood formed outside donation centers across the capital Saturday.
Over twenty hours on from the attack, Putin finally addressed the tragedy. He offer condolences to the victims and their families and vowed that those responsible would be punished accordingly. Crucially, when talking about the perpetrators, he failed to mention ISIS even once, instead linking Ukraine to the attack. “They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine,” Putin said, “where, according to preliminary information, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
It’s possible that Putin kept quiet for as long as he did in hope that an alternative explanation would emerge, and that he would not stand exposed for having rejected an American warning about a stadium terrorist attack. It took him three days to speak after the Kursk submarine sinking in 2000 and a day to speak after the Prigozhin rebellion last summer. The harder the explanation, the longer the pause. His address to the Russian nation, making no mention of ISIS, suggests he plans to plow on with this strategy.
“Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has angrily rejected US assurances that Kyiv had no hand in the attack. Unless Washington had proof they were willing to share with Russia, they didn’t have the right to “indulge” Kyiv in that way. ”
You show your proof that Ukraine was involved. Putler saying it was Ukraine, does not count as evidence, nor any of your poisonous friends.
very very very very dangerous moment.
Dangerous for Putin, indeed. If he starts a witch hunt on muslims now, riots may break out in islamic republics of the federation and his empire may break apart. That’s certainly one reason why his minions desperately try to drag Ukraine into this. 😠
ISIS claim they did it, the US says ISIS did it. Putler never mentions ISIS. The Russian regions are not going to forget that he used their citizens as Cannon fodder in Ukraine.
Right, Foccusser, there’s already inner Federation tensions because of the bloodtoll of the war, and Putin’s gotta be concerned about that. Isis is the totally wrong culprit for him, since that also shows that his involvement in Syria may have been a huge failure. So, he has to present another suspect, to defuse that political bomb. No surprise, then, that his propaganda channels have been ordered to point at Ukraine (even though that country has nothing to gain from this horrible terror act!). 😠
it doesn’t matter what reality is or what the USA, ISIS, Ukraine, the world can say. The Kremlin nazi has always been content to activate the military or rhetorical levers according to these goals. There, he clearly points the finger at Ukraine. If he is consistent with his madman mantra he will unleash incredible fire on Kyiv. The red line for tactical nuclear weapons could very well be crossed.
Personally I am really afraid of what could happen in Ukraine.
George Galloway eh? Born out of an IRA mother, he is now a wealthy, champagne-swilling, cigar-smoking Marxist/Izlamonazi who loves fascists. He recently made a comeback as the MP for Gaza West; AKA Rochdale. His love for putler is matched by his love for lzlamonazi terror and his noxious hatred for the US, UK and their ally; Ukraine.
It’s safe to call him a Russian agent: by definition, if you work for RaT, as he did for years, you are an extension of the kremnazi state.
He converted to mohamedism and has had at least four wives. One was a Pali and the current one; an Indonesian, worked with him on his shitshow : The Sputnik, on RaT.
Giorgi G’Allah-Weih, as I like to call him, said:
“The end of the Soviet Union was the biggest catastrophe of my life”.
“Margarita Simonyan, the sulfurous editor-in-chief of the state-controlled broadcaster RT, went a step further, saying on Telegram:“This was not ISIS. This was the Ukrainians. And the fact that, even before any arrests, before faces or names were known, the western intelligence services took it upon themselves to convince everyone that it was ISIS just exposes their guilty consciences.”
The author rightly describes the Armenian nazi succubus as “sulfurous.”
Pure evil.