Lukashenko denies Putin and claims that Moscow terrorists tried to flee to Belarus

The president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has denied one of the main arguments that his Russian counterpart and ally, Vladimir Putin, used to link the jihadists who committed the attack on March 22 with Ukraine.

According to Lukashenko, the original plan of the attackers was to flee to Belarus and not to Ukraine directly, as the Kremlin claims.

Minsk was informed in time by Moscow that the terrorists were fleeing in a white Renault last Friday night, according to his account.

“We put our forces into action.

They could not enter Belarus in any way.

"They realized this, and that's why they turned around and headed to the section of the border between Ukraine and Russia," Lukashenko told the Belta agency on Tuesday.

The Belarusian ambassador in Moscow, Sergei Krutói, shared the same version as Lukashenko last Saturday.

Putin maintained, however, hours later in his message to the nation that the four terrorists had been intercepted in the Bryansk border region.

They were about 150 kilometers from both Belarus and Ukraine and headed directly towards their great enemy, according to the Kremlin, because they had some type of help on the Ukrainian side to cross the front, although it did not offer more details.

“Their (terrorist) mediators understood that it was impossible to enter Belarus,” Lukashenko declared.

Despite being in direct contact with the Kremlin, the president said he still had secrets to tell: “We have suspicions about some (possible mediators).

“I will call Putin and tell them my suspicions.”

Lukashenko made these statements when trying to defend Putin for not having appeared on the same day of the attack.

“Why did I say this?

Because they began to reproach Putin.

'Something happened, but keep quiet.

He doesn't speak, he doesn't address people, etc.'

If Putin and I don't sleep!

What do you know about it?

There was constant interaction, and when it was time to talk, he appeared and spoke,” Lukashenko explained.

Moscow, however, maintains its original thesis.

The head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, has accused Ukraine of having organized the Crocus room attack on March 22 despite not yet having any evidence to prove it.

The person responsible for Russian espionage insists that the terrorist act has, in his opinion, “a bias” that points to kyiv.

Bortnikov has demanded the declaration of the Ukrainian intelligence service (GUR) as a terrorist organization and has identified Kyrylo Budanov, its boss, as “a legitimate target” to kill.

“We believe (Ukraine) is involved.

Depending on the rest of the investigation, we will try to obtain materials that prove it,” Bortnikov said.

The attack was attributed to the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K), a branch of the terrorist organization that was born in Afghanistan and expanded to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, including Tajikistan.

One of the jihadist group's channels exclusively published a video recorded by the attackers during the massacre.

Their clothes matched, according to independent Russian media, those of the alleged terrorists detained by Russian security forces on Saturday.

The four, of Tajik nationality, lived in Russia.

kyiv, for its part, has flatly denied having any connection with the tragedy and has accused the Kremlin of thus wanting to avoid its own responsibility.

“The Ukrainian side has trained militants in the Middle East.

Representatives of the kyiv regime have gone to the terrorists' enclaves and have worked with them,” Bortnikov declared without establishing a direct link with the Crocus room attack.

His other alleged evidence is that the attackers were caught—according to the official Russian version—on the way to the border with Ukraine because there they had an alleged contact to cross the area most monitored by Russia now: the war front with Ukraine.

Contribution of the West

“We believe that the action was prepared by the radical Islamists themselves and, therefore, naturally, the Western intelligence services contributed to it,” Bortnikov added without clarifying why the West, which formed its own alliance against the Islamic State, did so. He has fought in the Middle East and has suffered attacks from his jihadists, he would collaborate with the Islamists.

The accusations against kyiv made just now about its alleged collaboration with the Islamic State are surprising because the Russian fight against the jihadist group goes back a decade and news about the dismantling of terrorist cells of the Central Asian affiliate is common.

On March 7, for example, the FSB announced the “liquidation” of the terrorists of a commando of the Islamic State of Khorasan who were preparing to attack Jewish centers in Moscow.

Bortnikov also acknowledged that the United States had informed Russia of the threat of extremist attacks this month.

However, the head of the FSB has dismissed the notice as mere “generalities.”

Despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Washington and Moscow still maintain open communication in the fight against terrorism.

However, their distancing also threatens these security channels.

The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, was eloquent this Monday when he rejected (at least in front of the gallery) American help in his investigation of the attack: "We are not going to run after them, we will work ourselves."

The Russian press, accustomed to the Kremlin's methods, questioned whether the alleged terrorists are still alive.

Bortnikov was brief: “Later.”

“There will be retaliatory measures, everyone involved in this will be found and punished.

We are working on it,” Bortnikov added this Tuesday without commenting on the violence used against the detainees during their interrogations.

Putin admitted this Monday that the massacre at the Crocus concert hall, located on the outskirts of Moscow, “was the work of Islamist terrorists,” but insisted to those responsible for his security forces that there must be some link with Ukraine.

The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrikin, assured at the same meeting that his agents had already obtained all the necessary information on the 11 suspects detained after the attack, including the four alleged terrorists who executed the spectators in cold blood. of the concert.

Bastrikin did not respond to Putin's questions about the mastermind behind the attack.

Türkiye denies accusations from Russia

Turkish authorities maintain that those accused of the Moscow attack were radicalized in Russia and were only passing through Turkey.

In one of the videos recorded by the captors of Shamsidin Fariduni, one of the four perpetrators of the massacre, he claimed to have arrived in Russia from Turkey and images of Fariduni in different parts of Istanbul have been published in several Russian media.

According to data from the Turkish Ministry of the Interior, Fariduni, a Tajik national, entered Turkey on February 20 and returned to Russia on March 2.

Fariduni was registered as a resident of the Russian city of Krasnogorsk, although he was employed at a factory in Podolsk, south of Moscow.

The trip to Turkey would be because his visa in Russia had expired (citizens of Tajikistan can stay in Turkey for 90 days without needing a visa).

Between February 21 and 27, he stayed in a hotel in the central Fatih district and visited several monuments with which he had his photo taken, including the Fatih Mosque.

Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, another of the accused, was also in Turkey before the attack.

He remained in Istanbul for almost two months, according to airport records: he arrived on January 5 and traveled to Russia on March 2, on the same plane as Fariduni.

“Both individuals were able to travel freely between Russia and Turkey, since there was no arrest warrant against them,” maintains a Turkish government security source: “Our analysis is that these individuals were radicalized in Russia, given the short time they spent in Turkey".

After the attack in Russia, the Turkish Interior Ministry launched raids against suspected Islamic State cells and last Sunday the arrest of 40 people in eight provinces was announced.

The Turkish head of the Interior, Ali Yerlikaya, stated that between June and March 23, more than a thousand operations were carried out against alleged cells linked to the jihadist group in which more than 2,700 people were detained, of which 692 They remain in prison and 529 are released under judicial control.

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