The suspected gunmen “tried to hide and moved toward Ukraine,” Russian president says in televised address. Kyiv denies any involvement.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Saturday suggested that terrorists who killed at least 133 people in Friday night’s attack at a Moscow concert hall were helped by someone based in Ukraine, without providing evidence.
Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the massacre, for which Islamic State has claimed responsibility. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Russian soil in recent years.
Putin said 11 people have been detained in the killings, including the four gunmen. “They tried to hide and moved toward Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the border,” Putin said in a speech on Russian television Saturday.
It doesn’t really sound like a false flag because it doesn’t really help them and it actually makes them look weak. The security forces are so pathetic that an external security force was able to predict the attack and even told them with weeks worth of warning that this was about to happen.
I’m pretty confident that this attack is actually legitimate, actually happened, was committed by IS, and the Russian security forces are so ineffective that they allowed it to go ahead. But Russia is in “blame everything bad on the Ukrainians” mode. Is zero mystery or intrigue here.