Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko undermined his best friend Vladimir Putin when he said the men who allegedly opened fire at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert hall last week, killing at least 139 people, had tried to flee to Belarus in the first place, not Ukraine. contradictory statements. Kremlin Line.
Contrary to Moscow’s claims, Lukashenko said on Tuesday that the alleged attackers in the March 22 concert hall attack had first tried to cross into Belarus, which borders Ukraine and Russia, after fleeing the scene. Newsweek sent an email to the Russians and Ukrainians. Foreign Ministries on Wednesday to request comment.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in Moscow in more than a decade, but Russian officials claimed Ukraine was the mass shooting, without offering concrete evidence. Kiev has denied any involvement.
“We have put our teams on high alert to prepare for a combat situation,” Lukashenko told a news conference on Tuesday, according to the official Belarusian telegraph agency, or BelTA. “As a result, they were unable to enter Belarus through any means. Aware of this, they diverted their direction and headed towards the Ukrainian-Russian border. “
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U. S. -based think tank, said Tuesday in its latest investigation into the standoff in Ukraine that Lukashenko’s suggestion that the attackers were heading to Belarus before Belarusian and Russian special forces forced them to switch. The leadership “categorically contradicts Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims about the planned escape of the attackers. “
“Putin addressed the Russian Federation on March 23 after the March 22 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall and claimed that the attackers had ‘contacts’ who had prepared a ‘window’ for their exfiltration across the border into Ukraine, a claim for which there is no evidence of the attack. “This is evidence that has become central to the Kremlin’s baseless accusations that Ukraine was concerned or guilty of the attack,” the think tank said.
Lukashenko is Putin. La’s closest best friend Belarus, a former republic of the Soviet Union, has had a close relationship with Russia since Putin introduced a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Although Belarus was not directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict, Russian troops were allowed to conduct exercises on Belarusian territory before the war began. The country was used through Russia to release its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The ISW said Putin and other senior Kremlin officials appear to be suffering from maintaining a coherent rhetorical line about the concert hall attack. He adds that this indicates that the Kremlin “has not understood how to reconcile its data operations with the truth of its intelligence and law enforcement failures. “
Other senior Russian officials, however, have doubled down on the Kremlin’s baseless narrative by accusing Ukraine of wearing down the attack, while admitting that the Russian government ultimately lacks critical data about the attack, contradicting their own statements and those made through other Kremlin officials. ” he added.
The Russian government arrested 11 other people in connection with the attack.
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Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek journalist based in Kuala Lumpur. She focuses on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel joined Newsweek in 2021 and in the past worked with media outlets such as the Daily Express, The Times, Harper’s BAZAAR, and Grazia. She holds a Master’s degree in City Press Journalism from the University of London and a BA in Russian-language journalism from Queen Mary, University of London. Languages: English, Russian
You can contact Isabel by emailing i. vanbrugen@newsweek. com or following her on X @isabelvanbrugen