Russia declares its Special Military Operation is over and that Russia is now at war with NATO in Ukraine
Russian President Putin Addressing the Russian People earlier today vowing to “obliterate” the perpetrators of this “bloody and barbaric terrorist attack.”
Editor’s Note—a previous version of this article incorrectly reported that one of the captured terrorists was Ukrainian Foreign Legion Colonel Rustam Azhiev. However, in the process of fact checking this claim shortly after I posted it I determined that the name of the terror suspect is actually Rustam Nazarov so I have corrected this in the current version.
Last night four terrorist gunmen, who were revealed to be Tajik citizens, engaged in a mass terror attack at a popular concert hall in Moscow in which they employed assault rifles and explosives to kill 143 civilians and wound hundreds more. Earlier today Putin addressed the Russian people in response to the attack. In his address, Putin denounced the mass shootings at Crocus City Hall a “bloody and barbaric terrorist attack.” He then claimed that those involved in the shooting allegedly intended to travel to Ukraine, where, according to him, a “window” to exit the country had been prepared for them. Putin stated, “All four perpetrators of the attack – all those who shot and killed people – have been found and detained…They were trying to hide and were moving towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them to cross the border. A total of 11 people were detained.” Putin declared a National Day of Mourning in response to what he claimed were Ukrainian sponsored terrorist strike.
The attack occurred on the same day that Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dmitri Pskov declared Russia’s Special Military Operation had ended and declared that Russia was now fighting a proxy war with NATO in Ukraine. This announcement has major ramifications for Ukraine and NATO that I will address in my next article and followed the largest Russian missile strike on Ukraine since the beginning of the war with 150 Russian missiles, few of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses in what appear to constitute a preparatory attack in advance of a major Russian offensive which could materialize as early as May or June.
US intelligence agencies stated that the attack was most likely conducted by ISIS-K which routinely claims responsibility for such mass terror attacks. However, there are many reasons to doubt this Biden administration narrative and even if it is true that ISIS-K fighters did carry out the attack, the question remains who hired them and paid them to do so. Yesterday I posted the following initial assessment on social media: “Either Ukraine helped the terrorists do it or this is a Russian false flag as a pretext for Putin to take off the gloves with Ukraine. Hard to know for sure. Most likely Ukraine paid them handsomely to conduct the terrorist attack. If ISIS is claiming responsibility, then it’s not a Russian false flag attack. While Putin has not spoken out in response to these attacks as yet, he likely will following the interrogation of ISIS terrorist suspects which will likely expose Ukrainian ties.”
The London Guardian newspaper reported that the terrorists were hired and given AK-47s as well as 500,000 rubles to conduct the attacks . This morning, I posted, “This operation bears the fingerprints of the CIA-created Ukrainian SBU’s (former Ukrainian KGB) Fifth Directorate that was created for the very purpose of staging these types of attacks deep inside Russia to attempt to destabilize Putin’s regime while giving the US plausible deniability.” Of all the potential perpetrators of the attack, Ukraine obviously stands to benefit the most. One of the purposes of this Ukrainian sponsored terrorist attack was likely to embarrass Russian President Vladimir Putin and send a signal to the Russian people that no one in western Russia is immune from Ukrainian missile and terror strikes in an attempt to undermine Russian popular support for the war. But the main purpose of the attack is likely to provoke exactly the kind of Russian military escalation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been seeking over the past two years in order to provoke direct NATO military intervention to ensnare the US and its NATO allies in a direct war with Russia as Zelensky knows that is Ukraine’s only hope to liberate any of the five annexed Ukrainian oblasts from Russian control.
Former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen, who serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Security Policy, published an excellent article showing how the CIA set up and trained the Ukrainian SBU Fifth Directorate death squads to kill ethnic Russian Ukrainian citizens behind the lines as well as to conduct deep drone and missile strikes in Russian territory including Russian nuclear bomber bases and their Black Sea Fleet Headquarters where a number of Russian nuclear-armed warships and submarines are based. It was recently revealed that these are exactly the type of attacks that Russian nuclear doctrine cites as justifying Russian nuclear escalation against Ukraine and NATO. The US and its NATO allies are not merely arming Ukraine with the missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory but US military and intelligence operatives are likely closely involved in helping Ukraine decide which targets to attack.
The New York Times was the first to report on the CIA’s close ties with Ukrainian intelligence dating back well over a decade following the CIA’s success in funding and aiding the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych during the February 2014 Maidan coup which was authorized by then Vice President Joe Biden. The also reported on this blockbuster revelation in an article entitled, “Ukrainian spies with deep ties to CIA wage shadow war against Russia.” noting that the CIA set up twelve secret bases in Ukraine back several years ago. Russia claims that one of them has since been destroyed by Russian artillery bombardment likely resulting in several US casualties. The article reveals:
“The missions have involved elite teams of Ukrainian operatives drawn from directorates that were formed, trained and equipped in close partnership with the CIA, according to current and former Ukrainian and U.S. officials. Since 2015, the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s Soviet-formed services into potent allies against Moscow, officials said. The agency has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine as well as the United States, built new headquarters for departments in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, and shared intelligence on a scale that would have been unimaginable before Russia illegally annexed Crimea and fomented a separatist war in eastern Ukraine. The CIA maintains a significant presence in Kyiv, officials said. The extent of the CIA’s involvement with Ukraine’s security services has not previously been disclosed. U.S. intelligence officials stressed that the agency has had no involvement in targeted killing operations by Ukrainian agencies, and that its work has focused on bolstering those services’ abilities to gather intelligence on a dangerous adversary. A senior intelligence official said that “any potential operational concerns have been conveyed clearly to the Ukrainian services.”
Many of Ukraine’s clandestine operations have had clear military objectives and contributed to the country’s defense. The car bombing that killed Daria Dugina, however, underscored Ukraine’s embrace of what officials in Kyiv refer to as “liquidations” as a weapon of war. Over the past 20 months, the SBU and its military counterpart, the GUR, have carried out dozens of assassinations against Russian officials in occupied territories, alleged Ukrainian collaborators, military officers behind the front lines and prominent war supporters deep inside Russia. Those killed include a former Russian submarine commander jogging in a park in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar and a militant blogger at a cafe in St. Petersburg, according to Ukrainian and Western officials. Ukraine’s affinity for lethal operations has complicated its collaboration with the CIA, raising concerns about agency complicity and creating unease among some officials in Kyiv and Washington.
To manage that security risk, the CIA worked with the SBU to create an entirely new directorate, officials said, one that would focus on so-called “active measures” operations against Russia and be insulated from other SBU departments.
