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Belarusian leader Lukashenko contradicts Russia’s version of Friday’s attack, saying the perpetrators wanted to flee to Ukraine.
Belarusian head of state Alexander Lukashenko assured on Tuesday that he and Putin did not sleep all night. “Will you help close it down?” Putin asked. “I will,” he replied. Lukashenko spoke to the press about closing the Belarusian border to the four terrorists who fled after Friday’s bloodbath at Crocus City Hall near Moscow. Roadblocks were set up and police forces, KGB, border guards and army units were called in.
“They couldn’t get into Belarus anywhere,” said Lukashenko happily. “They therefore turned away and moved towards the Ukrainian-Russian border.”
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These words may have annoyed or even angered Vladimir Putin. Because the Belarusian arch-buddy thereby demolished his statements about the terrorists’ escape destination. The day after the terrorist act, Putin said that the Ukrainians had organized a “window” at the border for the mass murderers. Putin later reiterated that the perpetrators wanted to escape “precisely to Ukraine.” And he accused the “neo-Nazi Kiev regime” of instigating the bloodbath in order to panic the society of Russia, which was victorious on the battlefield.
In view of Lukashenko’s verbal outburst, Moscow’s highest-ranking Stasi men supported Putin’s version to the best of their ability. Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council, assured that “a lot” refers to Ukraine. “The law enforcement agencies know everything and will inform about it in good time.” And FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said that the perpetrators were expected in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s non-involvement is an open secret in the Russian security apparatus
A large part of the Russian media reported that Lukashenko had closed the border to the Tajiks, but omitted mention of their change in direction. But not everyone stuck to it, even the state agency Interfax reproduced Lukashenko’s words in full. And apparently it’s not just news people who actively have doubts about Putin’s version. Four anonymous sources close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg that a large part of the political and business elite, including top officials in Putin’s entourage, did not believe in Ukraine’s involvement. Putin himself knows that there is no evidence of this. But he uses the image of the enemy to bring society together.
It also seems to be an open secret in the Russian security apparatus that the Afghan Khorasan faction of the Islamic State’s commitment to the crime is genuine. She had already killed five people in an explosive attack on the Russian embassy in Kabul in autumn 2022. According to the investigative portal “Dossier,” the Security Council already knew before the attack that IS could use Tajik migrants in Russia as perpetrators. But just last Tuesday, Putin described US attack warnings from early March as “open blackmail” to “intimidate and destabilize our society.” Putin’s anti-Western narratives dominate his politics, even to the detriment of the nation’s security.
Putin blames the West for terror
Meanwhile, opposition experts criticize the FSB for failing to prevent the bloodbath because it has been searching for terrorists instead of pacifists since February 2022.
The captured perpetrators themselves have not said a word about Ukraine. But they will probably continue to torture them until they confirm all the allegations against Kiev and the West. And the Kremlin chief is preparing new narratives on Monday: “Are radical and even terrorist Islamic organizations interested in striking against Russia, which is pushing for a just solution to the escalating Middle East conflict?” He seems firm in his image of Russia as a protective power of the Islamic world against the neo-colonial West.