Ground zero of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine shifted Friday to Moscow’s Crocus City Hall.
Ground zero of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine shifted Friday to Moscow’s Crocus City Hall.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the concert shooting that killed 133 and injured 140, but all is likely not as it seems — and the Kremlin is putting the blame on Kyiv.
ISIS may or may not have been involved.
If the latter, the Federal Security Service (FSB) was probably behind it.
ISIS often claims responsibilities for attacks it did not commit to build its reputation and exaggerate its reach.
Heavily guarded Moscow feels like a heavy lift for the Islamic terrorist organization.
The now-gutted concert venue is only 14 miles from the Kremlin and the FSB’s Lubyanka Square headquarters.
Putin’s post-attack comments and finger-pointing are eyebrow-raising and revealing.
During an address to the Russian people, he claimed the four gunmen “tried to hide and move towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
Not so fast.
We have gone down this road with Putin before.
Authorities attributed four bombings in September 1999 — in Buynaksk, Pechatniki, a Moscow neighborhood, and Volgodonsk — to “Islamic insurgents.”
Then-Prime Minister Putin exploited the attacks, which killed 307 Russian civilians, to justify a second invasion of Chechnya.
Putin got his land war and, in the process, secured his grip on power by becoming Russia’s president in May 2000.
