FSB Director Bortnikov accuses Ukraine of involvement in Crocus City Hall terrorist attack

The Russian news agency Interfax reported the information.

“We are currently identifying the entire circle of those involved in the crime. Over twenty people have already been detained, including direct perpetrators and accomplices,” Bortnikov said.

According to him, preparations for the terrorist attack, financing, the attack itself and the terrorists' retreat were coordinated via the Internet by members of the Vilayat Khorasan group.

“The investigation is ongoing, but we can already say with certainty that Ukraine's military intelligence is directly involved in this attack,” Bortnikov added.

Terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall: background

During a concert at the Crocus City Hall shopping center near Moscow on Friday, March 22, unidentified gunmen in camouflage opened fire, killing 145 people. The FSB detained over 10 suspects.

More than two weeks before the attack, the US government warned Russian officials that the mall was a potential terrorist target.

Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate is convinced that the shooting at the Crocus shopping center in Moscow is a deliberate provocation by the Putin regime, and the Foreign Ministry said the world should strongly reject Russia's false accusations of Ukraine's alleged involvement. The White House also rejected Ukraine's involvement. 

On March 23, Vladimir Putin made an address on the terrorist attack. According to the Russian dictator, Ukraine was "preparing a window" to allow terrorists who had staged a terrorist attack in Moscow to escape. 

On March 25, at a meeting with security officials, Putin admitted that "radical Islamists" had carried out the attack, but blamed the shooting on "those who are fighting Russia with the hands of the Kyiv regime."

The Secretary of the Russian Security Council, the Director of the FSB, and the spokesperson for the Russian President repeated Putin's version of the "Ukrainian trace" and the involvement of Western intelligence services in the terrorist attack in Moscow. At the same time, self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko denied that the alleged perpetrators of the terrorist attack were trying to escape to Ukraine.

The Center for Countering Disinformation doubts that the Crocus attack could have been carried out by the perpetrators identified by the Russian authorities.

The US National Security Council (NSC) on Sunday, March 24, unequivocally rejected Russia's attempts to accuse Ukraine of organizing the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall shopping mall near Moscow.