Moscow Terrorist Attack is Third Worst in Modern European History

Moscow concert hall attack killed 143 dead, seriously wounded 40, and injured 320 is the third worst European terrorist attack since 1980.  Happening during President Putin’s reelection, and the terrorists fleeing on toward Ukraine creates perception of a Western state actor involvement. 

The timing of the attack on March 22, was between March 15-17 Russian election voting and the expected official results on March 27 that President Putin won a fifth term with a historic 75 million votes and 87.28% margin.  

Concert audience of 6,000 had packed into a top Moscow venue to watch a veteran rock band called Picnic.  Four gunmen pulled-up outside in a white Renault, calmly walked in, sprayed hundreds of bullets from AK47s, expertly set fire to the building, and escaped westward in the white Renault.  

US and UK foreign service authorities within an hour claimed the attack was not associated with Ukraine, but from Islamic State Khorasan that encompasses Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Syria.  

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) initially reported that a white Renault was identified by CCTV cameras entering the main road to Ukraine, security forces followed at a distance, and then intercepted the car an hour before the border. The gunmen were arrested without martyring themselves, and admitted to being paid $5,000 each for the attack.  

But FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov on March 26 stated, “We believe that radical Islamists prepared the action, while Western special services have assisted it and Ukrainian special services had a direct part in it.” 

Russian Investigative Committee on March 28 unveiled “substantiated evidence” a total of eleven terrorists received significant sums of money from Ukraine in the form of cryptocurrency.  All four gunmen were identified as Tajik nationals, and none of the seven others are Russian citizens.  

The FSB claims that evidence confirms Russian President Putin’s earlier allegations that the Ukrainians might have been preparing a “window” for them to cross.  The FSB claimed the terrorists if they had made it to Ukraine would have been “welcomed as heroes.” 

The Biden Administration rejected the Russian allegations as “nonsense” and said it was clear that the Islamic State was "solely responsible".  US National Security Spokesperson John Kirby reiterated prior comments that the US Embassy in Moscow had passed “written warning” to Moscow of an imminent terror attack and to avoid large public venues and gatherings.

The NY Times reported the US did not share the full intelligence with Moscow “out of fear Russian authorities might learn their intelligence sources or methods.”  The Times blamed the limits on, “The adversarial relationship between Washington and Moscow prevented US officials from sharing any information about the plot beyond what was necessary.” 

Yale Professor Timothy Snyder describes Ukraine’s value as “absolutely at the center” of Protestant Reformation, World War 1, World War 2, the Stalinist Terror, Holocaust and the Collapse of Soviet Union.

It is only about 300 miles over flat ground from Eastern Ukraine to downtown Moscow.  That means the road the terrorists tried to escape on is like a dagger pointed at the heart of “Mother Russia,” the largest nation on the planet with a land mass of over 6.6 million square miles.   

The timing of the terrorist attack in Moscow comes as the war in Ukraine has taken a huge turn in favor of the Russians, with defensive fortifications deteriorating at 6 major points along Ukraine’s 600 mile eastern front.  

The Ukrainian Army seems on the verge of suffering a similar fate as the Germans in World War 2, when the fall of the City of Chasiv Yar allowed the Russians to quickly capture the half of Ukraine east of Dnipro River.

Former US weapons Inspector Scott Ritter on the Judging Freedom show said the “CIA Special Activities Division” is the US ground branch that has trained Ukrainians on “irregular warfare,” also referred to as terrorism.   

According to Ritter believes the West knows that Ukraine has already lost the war, but unconventional military cells placed deep behind enemy lines could “achieve a political result.”  For example, terrorizing the Russian people into lowering their support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, suppressing their support for the state, and increasing the possibility that they might rise up against Vladimir Putin.

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