fact finder
After the attack near Moscow, pictures of the alleged perpetrators quickly circulated on social networks – and turned out to be false. There is also no real evidence for some of the blame.
“New reports about the search by the Russian security authorities for a number of men from Ingushetia who are suspected of the deadly terrorist attack in Moscow,” wrote the Visegrád 24 account, which has a wide reach on the short message platform X, shortly after the attack on a concert hall near Moscow. The account also posted five pictures of men who were allegedly wanted. But that is wrong.
As a reverse image search shows, the men’s pictures have been circulating on the Internet for much longer. Four of the pictures, including profiles of two men, have already been posted on a Telegram channel of the Russian state broadcaster Dagestan. It says: “Wanted for committing several armed attacks on police officers of the Republic of Ingushetia between March 26 and April 5, 2023.” The post also asks for information.
At the beginning of March, several Russian media reports could be found in which pictures of the men could also be found. It says that a total of six militants were eliminated in Ingushetia. These were therefore the men seen in the pictures. According to the reports, they were on the wanted list for the murder of three Interior Ministry employees. The men who are allegedly being sought in connection with the attacks in Moscow were killed at the beginning of March.
Manipulated ID card
Immediately after the attack, many X accounts posted the identity card of a man who was allegedly identified and arrested at the scene by the Russian secret service FSB. The man’s name was Samuel Hydenko and he was a suspected officer of the Ukrainian secret service. Among other things, a Ukrainian flag can be seen on the ID card. But this was also a false report.
The man in the photo is the American comedian Samuel Whitcom Hyde. The fact that manipulated images of him are distributed after attacks is almost macabre tradition. After the shooting in Munich, the attack in Manchester or the shooting in Münster, pictures of Hyde were distributed with the claim that he was the alleged perpetrator – often in the form of an alleged identity card, depending on the country of the attack his nationality and name were adjusted to make it appear more believable.
False report about license plate
For some pro-Russian channels, the license plate of a white van became false evidence of alleged Ukrainian perpetrator. Because this van with an alleged Ukrainian license plate was parked near the concert hall. However, the entire license plate of the minibus cannot be seen on the supposed evidence video.
If you look closely you can see that the left half of the license plate has been defaced. This means that the flag and the country abbreviation cannot be seen. In other videos, however, the left half is not blurred and can be clearly seen. You can see the Belarusian flag and the country code BY, the country code for Belarus.
The order of the numbers and numbers on the license plate also follows the Belarusian system of four digits, followed by two letters, a hyphen and a number. Current license plates from Ukraine, on the other hand, consist of two letters for the registration district, followed by four numbers and two letters.
Security warning the US Embassy is not current
The USA is also accused of complicity in some pro-Russian channels. There is one reason for this Security warning from the US Embassy in Moscow, which warns US citizens against attending large gatherings in the next 48 hours. The message said: “The embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to attack large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts, and US citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings in the next 48 hours.”
However, this report is not from this week. As can be seen on the US Embassy website, the security warning was published on March 7th. The reason for this was also a publication by the Russian secret service FSB, which had warned of a possible terrorist attack on a synagogue in Moscow. As a result, the British Embassy, among others, issued a security warning for its citizens in Russia.
Unproven allegations against Russia
But allegations that blamed Russia for the attack were quickly spread without any substantiated evidence. Some false parallels were drawn with the outbreak of the Second Chechen War. Several users claimed, among other things, that a terrorist attack in a theater in Moscow in 2002 was used by Vladimir Putin as a reason for the war in Chechnya. The question is whether he will do the same thing again.
The Second Chechen War began three years earlier, in 1999. In addition, it was not the attack on a theater in Moscow that triggered the war, but a series of bomb attacks on residential buildings in Russia. At the time, there were doubts about the official version of the Russian investigation findings that Chechen separatists were behind the attacks.
However, there is no evidence that the recent attack in Moscow was a so-called false flag operation. The jihadist militia “Islamic State” claimed responsibility for the attack. Terror expert Peter Neumann from King’s College in London assumes that this letter of confession is genuine.