Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Alexander Bortnikov said that the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Crocus wanted to damage relations in Europe.
At a meeting of the Council of Heads of Security Bodies and Special Services of the States, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov reported the latest data on the investigation of the terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall concert hall that took place on March 22. In particular, he named the coordinators, the total number of detainees, as well as one of the targets of the orderers of the terrorist attack.
Bortnikov said that police detained more than 20 people. He also added:
We are currently establishing the full circle of those involved in the atrocity. More than 20 persons have already been detained, including the direct perpetrators and accomplices.
The FSB chief said, two of the four participants in the attack arrived in Russia from Turkey shortly before the attack. One of the detainees admitted that he flew from there on March 4 and that he was offered half a million rubles for killing people.
Another defendant, Faridun Shamsiddin, published photos from Istanbul on social media in February. The eight photos bear the same date – February 23, almost all of them have geolocation: “Aksaray, Istanbul”. They include a photo of Shamsiddin himself, as well as shots at the Fatih Mosque.
Who coordinated the Crocus terrorist attack
Bortnikov said militants of the Wilayat Khorasan group from the Afghanistan-Pakistan zone coordineted via internet the preparation, financing, attack and withdrawal of the terrorists. He claimed:
Upon completion of the sortie, the terrorists received a clear command to move to the Ukrainian border, where a “window’ was prepared from that side.
Purposes of the terrorist attack
According to the FSB chief, Ukraine’s military intelligence has a direct link to the terrorist attack. Bortnikov said that one of the goals of the orderers of the terrorist attack was to damage the relations between European countries using religious and national factors. Bortnikov added:
Our geopolitical opponents expect to destroy the unique inter-ethnic and inter-confessional balance that has developed over a long period of coexistence of our peoples.
FSB chief expressed gratitude to colleagues from the special services of the European countries who assisted the Russian Federation in clarifying the circumstances of the terrorist attack. He noted:
I want to assure that all the circumstances of the crime will be established and everyone involved will not escape punishment.
Terrorist attack in “Crocus City Hall”
In the evening of March 22, the Russian rock band was to perform in the concert hall “Crocus City Hall”, located in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. But before the start of the performance, at about 8 p.m., the terrorists broke into the building and started shooting at people.
Recently, former Ukrainian MP Andrii Derkach said in a media interview that all the members of the cover-up group for the organisation of the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline had been identified.
Derkach also noted that so far it has been possible to trace “virtually all movements of funds through the company Burisma, as well as transfers through Morgan Stanley to the company Rosemont Seneca.” Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, owns this company, Derkach emphasised, noting that the US Congress has already received all the data that Biden will use to “prove influence peddling.”
The former Ukrainian deputy also added that the heads of the HUR of the Ministry of Defence and the SBU of Ukraine do not hide the fact that they carry out terrorist activities through an off-budget cache.
