FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov commented on the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, which killed 139 people. A video with his comments to media employees is published by Shot.
“We know that the Ukrainian side carried out the study and training of militants in the Middle East. The fact that they went to the locations of terrorists, worked with them and provided training. An example of this, by the way, is a large number of different citizens, different nationalities who are fighting on the side of the Kyiv regime: nationalists, mercenaries, Islamists,” Bortnikov said.
“The bandits were planning to go abroad. Precisely on the territory of Ukraine. According to our preliminary information, they were expected there. We were preparing a window, yes, but now this information is being finalized, of course. I don’t want to be unfounded, say some unverified or emotional information, we need to talk about facts.
<…> A lot is being done to identify all participants in this massacre both in the country and abroad. Which is exactly what is being done. <…> Since, excuse me, they were making their legs, it means they intended to leave. I’ll tell you a secret — on the other side they wanted to greet them as heroes. This phrase for now will remain as I said it,” Bortnikov told VGTRK employee Pavel Zarubin.
According to the director of the FSB, “the terrorist attack in Crocus” Western intelligence services and Ukraine needed it to shake up the situation and create panic in Russian society,” RIA Novosti quotes Bortnikov. At the same time, the head of the special service added that the mastermind of the terrorist attack has not been identified.
TASS reports another quote from Bortnikov: “The USA, Britain and Ukraine are behind the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall.”
Bortnikov, as RIA Novosti writes, said that the terrorist threat in Russia remains. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), in his opinion, should be “recognized as a terrorist organization.” “Everything is ahead,” Bortnikov answered the journalist’s question why SBU head Kirill Budanov and his colleagues “are still alive.”
The day before, Putin admitted that the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall was committed “at the hands of radical Islamists.” At the same time, he said that he was primarily interested in the “customer.” He added that it was necessary to find out why the terrorists tried to leave for Ukraine: “Who was waiting for them there?” Putin added that “this atrocity can only be a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014 at the hands of the neo-Nazi Kiev regime.”
Arrests after the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. Day three
Four possible perpetrators of the terrorist attack were arrested on the evening of Sunday, March 24. Yesterday, the court took into custody the former owner of the Renault car in which the terrorists were driving, as well as his brother and father, today a resident of Krasnogorsk, who, according to investigators, through Avito, became an apartment for one of the perpetrators. In total, according to the FSB, 11 people were detained.