A Russian investigation has determined that Ukraine was not involved in the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall shopping mall near Moscow — the terrorists were recruited by the Afghan cell of the Islamic State — Khorasan. These conclusions of the investigation contradict the statements that Russian leader Vladimir Putin and FSB head
The lawyer for one of the defendants Oleg Vlasov told the Russian propaganda media outlet Kommersant about this.
According to the case materials reviewed by the lawyer, the terrorists were recruited by the leadership of "Vilayat Khorasan". However, the direct customers of the terrorist attack in "Crocus" have not yet been found, as follows from the 420 volumes of the case.
After the attack, the suspected terrorists were ordered by the organizers to stay put and meet the Russian security forces with a fight. However, they disobeyed the order and left the shopping mall. When the curators learned about this, they advised the terrorists to move to the border with Ukraine, but did not give instructions on how to cross the border.
"Perhaps the organizers hoped that while crossing the border they would be shot either by our [Russians] or on the other side," the lawyer believes.
According to Vlasov, there is no clear statement of the motives for the attack in the case. One of the assumptions is that the terrorist attack could have been related to the aggravation of Israeli-Arab relations.
Crocus City Hall after the terrorist attack that killed 145 people, March 23, 2024.
These details of the investigation materials contradict the version publicly held by the Russian top leadership immediately after the terrorist attack.
The very next day after the attack, Putin said that the militants were planning to flee to Ukraine, where they allegedly had prepared a “window to cross the border”. Three days after the attack, he spoke of a “Kyiv trail” and the existence of a mastermind who carried out the attack “at the hands of radical Islamists”.
Putin called the terrorist attack’s goals “to harm Russian unity”. He also said that Russia “cannot be the target of terrorist attacks by Islamic fundamentalists” because of how Moscow behaves “in the external arena”.
The FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov said shortly after the attack that the attack was evidence that “Ukrainian neo-Nazis and their Western patrons” were organizing “the most barbaric crimes”. He later said that the attack was prepared by “radical Islamists,” who were allegedly aided by “Western intelligence services”. And Ukraine’s intelligence services had a “direct connection” to it.
By the fall of 2024, Bortnikov was saying that those who recruited the terrorists were members of the “Vilayat Khorasan” and “purposefully worked with the Tajik diaspora in Russia via the Internet, while physically being in Afghanistan”.
Crocus City Hall attack
On the evening of March 22, 2024, a shooting occurred at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, before the start of a performance by the band Picnic. According to the latest data, 145 people were killed and more than 550 injured in the terrorist attack.
A few hours after the attack, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it “the most brutal attack in recent years”. The next day, a video of the murder of Russians in the Crocus City Hall shopping mall, filmed by terrorists, appeared on social media. The footage confirms that the attack was carried out by Islamic State militants.
Four suspects in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack were arrested in Moscow — Muhammadsobir Fayzov, Shamsidin Fariduni, Saidakrami Rachabalizod, and Dalerzhon Mirzoyev.
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