DISINFO: The Crocus centre hall attackers were neo-Nazi Ukrainians
SUMMARY
Those who attacked the Crocus Centre hall near Moscow are neo-Nazis who were revived by Ukraine and its Nazi regime [...] After the terrorist attack, the perpetrators tried to flee towards the Russian-Ukrainian border, and they intended to cross it, as they were communicating and coordinating with Ukrainian parties. Initial information shows that the perpetrators wanted to flee to Ukraine and seek refuge there.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative depicting Ukraine as a terrorist and Nazi regime. The claim was made in connection with the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow. By trying to link the Crocus terrorist attack to Ukraine, pro-Kremlin media are trying to stoke support and gain legitimacy for its ongoing illegal invasion of Ukraine.
This disinformation story is part of a wider campaign by Russian officials and media -including by Vladimir Putin himself- to baselessly blame Ukraine and other actors for the attack.
Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in the assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, and the Islamic State group have claimed responsibility.
The US was legally obliged to warn Moscow earlier this month of a possible attack in Russia aimed at large gatherings before issuing a public advisory to citizens in the country. As explained by ABC news.
"The United States shared those advance intelligence indications under a tenet of the U.S. intelligence community called the “duty to warn," which obliges U.S. intelligence officials to lean toward sharing knowledge of a dire threat if conditions allow. That holds whether the targets are allies, adversaries or somewhere in between".
The alert was dismissed as "provocative", "blackmail" and an "attempt to intimidate, destabilise our country" by Putin. He said: “I’ll remind you of recent, let’s say directly, provocative statements of certain official Western structures about potential terror attacks in Russia. All of this looks like obvious blackmail and an attempt to intimidate, destabilise our country”.
In a recent development, news have appeared that Iran had warned Moscow a few days before of an imminent attack by ISIS based on information obtained from arrested ISIS terrorists in Iran.
Even Putin himself acknowledged late on 25 March that Islamists were committing the attack.
Finally, the myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine has been the cornerstone of Russian disinformation about the country since the very beginning of the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests, when it was used to discredit the pro-European popular uprising in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine's foreign policy. It has been widely addressed here.
See other similar cases: ISIS claiming responsibility for Moscow attack looks like a fake, Anti-Russian actors using neo-Nazis in Kyiv may be involved in Crocus attack, Kyiv may be involved in the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall.