Published March 25, 2024
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt and retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “winning the war on information” in the aftermath of a gun attack on a concert hall outside of Moscow that killed 137 people and injured 182 more.
Though the Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility, and the United States has publicly said it believes the claim, Russia has cast doubt on the Middle Eastern terror group’s involvement and suggested Ukraine was behind the attack.
“It’s all an information war at this point in time, but the thing I want to stress, the most important thing, no matter who it ends up being — you can take all the ISIS reports at their retail value, you could say it’s Chechnya, you could say it’s Ukraine — what’s important now is whatever Putin says is going to happen from the Russian perspective is the Russian conclusion as they choose it to be,” Holt said during an appearance on “American Agenda.”
He’s already saying who he’s blamed — he’s blaming Ukraine for this,” he said. “We are already seeing intensification on the front lines; the hypersonic missiles that they took last night in Ukraine were just absolutely brutal. What I’m concerned about is that their air defenses have broken down. We are going to see more of this as this offensive goes from defense to offense in Ukraine. There’s a lot of diplomacy that has to be conducted now based on what has occurred with this terror thing in Moscow. My advice for the D.C. folks would be you’ve got to get ahead of this. You’ve got to get proactive. Our president hasn’t been on the phone with Vladimir Putin in two years. Now might be a really, really good time because we should all remember that we’re dealing with a nuclear power that has the world’s most nuclear weapons.”
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SOURCE: www.newsmax.com
RELATED: The battle for blame over a deadly terror attack in Moscow
All signs point to ISIS in a terrorist attack that killed over 130 people near Moscow, but Vladimir Putin is connecting it to the war in Ukraine.
Published March 25, 2024
The deadliest terror attack in Russia in decades may not be directly related to the ongoing war in Ukraine, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have implications for the future of that conflict. In fact, the horrific attack has already become one more battle in the ongoing information war between Russia, Ukraine, and Ukraine’s Western allies, including the US. The nature and timing of the attack, as well as its alleged perpetrators, have all combined to make this tragedy fertile ground for conspiracy theories and motivated reasoning.
At least 133 people were killed in the attackon the Crocus City Hall theater just outside Moscow on Friday, where a concert by the veteran Russian rock band Piknik was happening. A group of gunmen wearing tactical gear and carrying automatic weapons shot concertgoers and set fire to the building. Grisly videos circulating on social media seen by Vox show the attackers firing on defenseless people crouched on the ground.
With over 100 people wounded, the death toll is likely to rise, but it is already higher than the 132 people killed in the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis — an event with which it shared some disturbing resemblances — and is likely to be the second-worst terrorist attack in Russian history after the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis in the country’s North Caucasus region, which resulted in more than 300 deaths.
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SOURCE: www.vox.com
RELATED: Putin blames ‘Islamists’ for Moscow attack but links them to Ukraine
In a televised public statement, recently re-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time acknowledged that ‘radical Islamists’ had carried out the attack, all while fanning the flames of their ties to Ukraine.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting on measures taken after a massacre in the Crocus City Hall, outside Moscow, on March 25, 2024.
Published March 25, 2024
President Vladimir Putin on Monday, March 25, acknowledged for the first time that “radical Islamists” were behind last week’s attack on a concert hall outside Moscow, but suggested they were linked to Ukraine somehow, in a possible bid to limit the responsibility of the Russian security services.
In his latest comments on the attack on Monday, Putin acknowledged that Islamists had carried out the attack: “We know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries,” Putin said in a televised meeting.
But the Russian leader said “many questions” remained unanswered, including why the attackers tried to flee to Ukraine – a claim that Kyiv has rejected. “Of course, it is necessary to answer the question, why after committing the crime the terrorists tried to go to Ukraine? Who was waiting for them there?” Putin asked.
“The US […] is trying to convince its satellites that there is not a Kyiv trace in the act of terror and that members of ISIS carried out the attack,” Putin earlier told a security meeting. “This atrocity may be just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014,” he said, referring to Ukraine and its allies.
IS claimed the attack Friday evening on the Crocus City Hall concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow that left at least 139 people dead, with Western governments also saying the extremist group appeared to be responsible.
