Russian officials said on Friday that they believe the attack on a concert hall in Moscow is connected to Ukraine. They found photos on a suspect’s phone showing soldiers in Ukrainian uniforms.
After the shooting and fire at the Crocus City Hall concert venue on March 22 that killed 145 people, Russian officials have been trying to say Ukraine is responsible, even though Ukraine says they didn’t do it and a group related to the Islamic State said they did it.
Officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have not shown any proof for the connection as they tried to change the story from the security services’ inability to stop the attack.
Russia’s main law enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, announced on Friday that they found pictures on one of the suspects’ phones showing people in Ukrainian flag uniforms and destroyed houses in the background.
The phone had a picture of a Ukrainian stamp with a rude message on it, the committee said. It did not show the picture, but it might be about a famous stamp from Kyiv that remembers when Ukrainian soldiers swore at a Russian warship during the 2022 invasion.
The committee also said that one of the suspects sent pictures of the roads and entrances to the concert hall to their boss on February. 24 – two years since Russia attacked Ukraine.
The committee said that the findings may show a connection between the terrorist attack and the special military operation, using the Kremlin’s term for the war. The agency’s statements could not be checked by a different source.
The day after the attack, officials said they caught four men in the Bryansk area next to Ukraine and accused them of doing the shootings. Putin and other officials say the four people were going to Ukraine.
Four people from Tajikistan went to a court in Moscow because they were accused of terrorism. They had signs of being severely beaten. Several people have been arrested as helpers in different parts of Russia, and some people possibly connected to the attackers were also taken into custody in Tajikistan.
The attack happened two weeks after the US Embassy in Russia said there might be an attack in Moscow at a big event. The US State Department told Russian officials about the threat.
This week, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for Putin, did not give a response to a report in The Washington Post. The report said that US officials had identified Crocus City Hall as a potential target. Peskov said that this is a matter for the security services.
The attack showed that Putin, who has been in power for 24 years, had a big security problem. He became president by being tough on terrorists from Chechnya.
Many people are wondering how gunmen were able to kill so many people at a large event. Critics think that Russia’s security forces are more concerned with stopping political opposition than dealing with real dangers to the public.