Putin's entourage doesn't believe Ukraine was involved in Crocus attack - Bloomberg
However, Putin intends to use the tragedy to try to rally Russians around the war in Ukraine
Russian authorities have no evidence of Ukraine's involvement in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack.
Source. This was reported by Bloomberg, citing four sources with close ties to the Kremlin.
Thus, one of the interlocutors claims that Vladimir Putin was present at discussions where officials agreed that Kyiv was not involved in the terrorist attack, but he intends to use the tragedy to try to rally Russians around the war in Ukraine.
The agency's sources also said that Russian officials "were shocked by the FSB's inability to prevent the attack" on concertgoers and that almost none of the political and business elite they know believes that Ukraine was behind the attack.
The FSB director, as The Insider wrote, has publicly stated his position that Ukrainian special services were involved in the preparation of the attack at Crocus City Hall.
Putin acknowledged that the attack was carried out by "radical Islamists", but repeated several times that the accused allegedly tried to escape to Ukraine. Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev called Ukraine's involvement in the attack "probable".
On the evening of 22 March, terrorists wearing camouflage opened fire at the Crocus City Hall concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, where a concert by the rock band Picnic was to begin. At least 139 people were killed. 182 people were injured.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, with its affiliated channels publishing photos of the militants and video footage of the attack. Russian security forces reported the detention of 11 people involved in the attack, including "all four direct perpetrators". Officially, eight defendants in the case have been arrested, including those who rented housing to the alleged terrorists and sold a car.
Background. As a reminder, the day before, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the ISIS wing, Wilayat Khorasan, was preparing terrorist attacks in France. He warned against distorting what happened in Crocus and said that he had offered Russia "enhanced cooperation" in the fight against terrorism.
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