How is the Kremlin spreading conspiracy theories to label Ukraine as a terrorist?!

Despite launching a massive disinformation campaign, Russia failed to blame Ukraine and the West for the March 22 terrorist attack in the Moscow region.

Even after the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack and released videos as proof of it, Russia continues to lie.

In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack on the outskirts of Moscow that killed at least 139 people and injured 182 others, Russia launched a massive disinformation campaign to blame Ukraine and the West as the masterminds of the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, intelligence chiefs and law enforcement agencies, state-run news media, and an entire army of pro-Kremlin defamation netizens are involved in spreading this conspiracy theory.

Russia did not pay attention to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the attack and even presented evidence of this by releasing videos allegedly filmed during the attack and showing close-up footage of the perpetrators shooting at people.

The Kremlin intensified its propaganda only after the Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Mr Putin’s closest ally, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, currently deputy head of the Security Council, launched the campaign on the evening of the attack, calling for the killing of Ukrainian officials:

“If it is proven that these are terrorists of the Kiev regime,” Mr. Medvedev wrote on the messaging app Telegram, “all of them must be found and mercilessly eliminated as terrorists, including officials of the state that committed such an atrocity. “

NTV, a TV channel owned by Russia’s state energy company Gazprom, aired a fake AI-generated video in which Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov admits Ukraine’s involvement in the attack. terrorist.

Announcing the fake video, the NTV presenter said: “The involvement of the Kiev regime in the terrorist attack in the Moscow region was confirmed publicly and on television by the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov.”

The official Russian Defense Ministry TV channel Zvezda and many other media outlets rebroadcast the fabricated video, which was easily seen as not created by a professional, repeating the false claim that Ukraine had claimed responsibility for the attack.

On Saturday morning, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the detention of 11 suspects captured near Russia’s border with Ukraine and Belarus. The FSB claimed that the four suspects tried to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border by car and were people who ‘had contacts’ in Ukraine.

On Saturday, Meduza, an independent Russian-language news site based in Latvia, reported that the Kremlin had “instructed state and government-loyal media to emphasize in their reporting ‘traces’ leading to Ukraine for the terrorist attack.” in Crocus”.

That same day, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state media organization “MIA Rossiya Segodnya” which includes “Sputnik” and “RT”, directly accused Ukraine of the terrorist attack: “So, yes. This is not ISIS [IS]. These are the Khokhols,” using a derogatory Russian term for ethnic Ukrainians.

On Saturday evening, President Putin addressed the nation for the first time since the attack. He confirmed that the perpetrators had been arrested and emphasized that they had headed for Ukraine. On the Ukrainian side, Mr. Putin claimed, a “window” had been opened through which terrorists could cross the Russian state border.

In the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, deputy Alexey Chepa spoke of Ukraine’s involvement as if it were confirmed. “Of course, there is an imprint that includes Ukraine. “All today’s events are related to Ukraine,” said Mr. Chepa to “RIA Novosti”.

The head of the Defense Committee in the State Duma of Russia, Andrei Kartapolov, said the same day that “Ukraine and its supporters” are the “main parties involved” in the terrorist attack in the Moscow region.

Alexander Dugin, the Russian ultra-nationalist intellectual, added Israel to the list of suspects.

“No hypothesis should be dismissed immediately. For example, one should not forget the Zionist revenge for the Russian position in Gaza and the presence of traces of the Israeli secret service Mossad, which, in fact, has close contacts with ISIS,” Mr. Dugin wrote in a Telegram post on Monday.

The chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the leader of the communist faction in the Duma, Gennady Zyuganov, has repeatedly accused “the Anglo-Saxon countries of NATO”.

During a meeting on Monday with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Mr. Zyuganov said the United States and Great Britain were behind the attack in the Moscow region:

“And not ISIS. … This is complete absurdity! ISIS and everything else is the creation of the CIA and MI6 (the British secret service) and everything we saw this time was their work.”

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev joined those who threw out accusations Tuesday of Ukraine’s involvement in the terrorist attack. When asked to clarify what Ukraine’s involvement indicates, Mr. Patrushev replied: “A lot.”

On Tuesday, the head of the Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, said that the designers and organizers of the terrorist attack on the Crocus concert hall had not yet been identified.

However, Mr Bortnikov made the same baseless accusations as other Russian intelligence chiefs:

“The terrorist attack on the Crocus concert hall was needed by Western and Ukrainian intelligence services to shock the situation and create panic in Russian society.”

Russian authorities announced on Tuesday the detention of 11 people involved in the terrorist attack, including the four suspected perpetrators.

After the arrest of the suspects, pro-government Russian channels on Telegram began sharing videos and photos showing how the detainees were being tortured. One such video showed how one of the arrested had a part of his ear cut off and put in his mouth.

Photos and videos from the courtroom, where the alleged perpetrators were brought in with arrest warrants, showed signs of torture. All four had bruises on their faces.

Ukraine rejected Russia’s accusations, accusing Russian security services of a fake operation.

More than two weeks before the attack on the concert hall, on March 7, the US embassy in Russia had warned of the risk of “extremist plans to attack places where many people gather in Moscow, including concerts”.

Three days before the attack, on March 19, President Putin, at an extended FSB board meeting, rejected the US warning, calling it “direct blackmail aimed at intimidating and destabilizing our society.”

US officials said that before the attack, the US shared with Russian intelligence information indicating that IS-Khorasan, a branch of the Islamic State active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, was planning an attack on Moscow./VOA