Toward Crocus: did Ukraine help those accused of the March 22 terrorist attack?

As the investigation established, the mass execution of civilians who came to a concert in Crocus City Hall on the evening of March 22 was carried out by a group of terrorists performing “under the flag” of the Islamic State. The main suspects in the execution - four immigrants from Tajikistan - were detained by Russian special services several hours later. All four - Dalerjon Mirzoev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov - were placed in custody.

On March 25, the court placed under arrest three more suspects of aiding terrorists. However, several days after the tragedy, the question remains open: who helped the terrorists and who was the organizer. The Russian President emphasized this during a meeting on measures taken in connection with the situation.

“We know by whose hands this atrocity was committed against Russia and its people. We are interested in who the customer is. In the course of joint work between our intelligence services and law enforcement agencies, it is necessary to obtain answers to a number of questions,” Vladimir Putin emphasized.

According to the head of state, the terrorist attack in Moscow could be “a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country with the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime since 2014.”

However, in Washington and Brussels the possibility of a Ukrainian trace is not considered. The United States placed full responsibility for the tragedy on Islamic fundamentalists even before the arrest of the accused, and there are no other versions in the White House. According to the American authorities, the massacre at Crocus was organized and carried out exclusively by the forces of the ISIS Vilayat Khorasan unit - an Afghan cell opposing the Taliban** in Afghanistan, as well as operating in a number of other countries. According to the Russian side, this position of the West does not reflect all realities.

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Multidirectional movement

As RT’s interlocutors involved in the Islamic State issue note, the participation of radical Islamists does not exclude assistance from Ukraine in organizing the crime. The problem is much broader and more complex than Western analysts present it, Russian experts believe: it cannot be ignored that IS militants are participating in battles on the side of Kyiv, and terrorists from the “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria”* are training at Ukrainian training grounds. 

Despite this information, Western media and Russian-language foreign agent publications, mainly working outside Russia, continue to adhere to the “American” version of events and deny Vladimir Putin’s statement about the preparations for the escape of “window” terrorists on the Ukrainian border.

“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a “window” was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” the president said then.

Reacting to this, opposition media followed the path of denial.

“Terrorists were moving towards Belarus, not Ukraine”, “News agencies close to terrorists published information about the involvement of ISIS” - these and similar headlines appeared in Meduza***, Important Stories*** and other foreign-funded publication sources.

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Under the flag of terror

Members of the Islamic State have long served hand in hand with regular military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, experts say. A detailed investigation about this was published by the WarGonzo publication of military correspondent Semyon Pegov. In particular, he published screenshots of correspondence between terrorists: they discussed the training of militants in Ukrainian camps and sent each other videos of shooting training recorded on the territory of Ukraine.

From the correspondence of the terrorists, it follows that in the fall of 2022, there were at least 300 militants in Ukraine calling themselves citizens of the “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.”

WarGonzo has compiled a list of persons involved in terrorist gangs on the territory of Ukraine. All of them are fighting on the side of Kyiv, as even Western media wrote about. 

Thus, videos and photographs of people with stripes similar to IS flags were published by The Sun in London and the American agency Associated Press. 

“In closed extremist chats, a message about taking responsibility was distributed on behalf of the ISIS agency Amaq,” he noted in a conversation with RT. “Such an agency did exist, but it stopped functioning quite a long time ago.”

The function of the abolished agency, says Pegov, was taken over by a new media formation of radicals - Nasheer News Agency. 

“Those who cooked up the sticky story about ISIS’s trace did not know this, or they were simply in a hurry and did not take into account the nuance,” notes the military correspondent.

Extremist Legion

Another military correspondent, Marat Khairullin, recalls that the Jabhat al-Shamiya brigade, consisting mainly of ethnic Tajiks, serves as part of the mercenary corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. According to Khairullin, the brigade commander is the right hand of Mukhiddin Kabirov. Kabirov is the creator of the “National Alliance of Tajikistan” (this organization is recognized as extremist and is banned in Tajikistan). 

In 2022, shortly after the start of the SVO, Kabirov entered into a partnership with Ilya Ponomarev **** - until recently, the main “media representative” of such terrorist entities as the Russian Volunteer Corps***** and the Russian Freedom Legion. *****, who took responsibility for attacks and killings of civilians on Russian territory. 

In November 2022, Kabirov and Ponomarev signed the so-called “Declaration of the International Anti-Authoritarian Union” (IAAU) - an anti-Russian document with which the signatories actually certified that they would organize extremist and violent actions on the territory of their states aimed at overthrowing the current government. The third party to sign the document was Inna Kurochkina, an extremist who for many years has represented the interests of the so-called emissary of Chechen separatists, Akhmed Zakaev, hiding in London. 

This document is a significant reason to think about how the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Tajik and Chechen terrorists can be connected, says Sergei Sokolov, editor-in-chief of the Verdict portal, investigative journalist. 

“The goals declared in the document fit perfectly into this terrible scenario,” says Sokolov. “The recruitment of perpetrators and organizational support for the bloody terrorist attack could well have been carried out by two terrorist liaisons - Mukhiddin Kabirov and Ilya Ponomarev.” 

Special handwriting

A veteran of one of the special forces, Ivan S., in a conversation with RT, notes that the handwriting of the performers and organizers differs from that typical of radical Islamists. He points out what is known from interrogations of the accused: no one met with the militants before the attack, they were simply given the coordinates of the cache and provided with instructions.

“As a rule, ISIS built everything on the personal processing of performers, constant meetings, meetings, brainwashing, but not on anonymous communication on Telegram,” he says. “This is very different from the modus operandi of ISIS in all previous attacks.”  

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Over the past few days, RT has compiled a dossier on each of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack, which it published on its Telegram channel. From the data obtained, it is clear that at least half of the group members did not know each other before preparing for the terrorist attack - they lived in different areas of Moscow and could hardly intersect.

Some, like Dalerjon Mirzoev, the alleged leader of the group, were in Russia illegally - with expired registration, with administrative tickets for violating immigration laws - and could not officially work, constantly leaving and then returning to the country. This circumstance may indicate the random nature of group selection. 

The most suspicious thing, according to Ivan S., is that after the terrorist attack the militants did not decide to sit out in one of the neighboring regions and then try to break into their native Central Asia and get lost there. 

“No, they rushed to the Bryansk region, intending, apparently, to cross the Ukrainian border,” the interlocutor continues. “But even in the conditions of the Northern Military District, this is practically impossible if no one has promised you that they are waiting on the opposite side.”

While officials in Kyiv deny involvement in the preparation of the terrorist attack and any connection with the detainees, the centers of information and psychological operations (IPSO) of Ukraine are working, targeting Russian teenagers. Thus, the head of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, published screenshots received from teenage subscribers on her Telegram channel. 

Unknown people write to children, offering to carry out a terrorist attack for money. The authors of anonymous messages know in which cities teenagers live, apparently having received information from database leaks. 

“The overwhelming majority of accounts are new, created on the territory of Ukraine,” Mizulina said. 

* IS, “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria” are terrorist organizations banned in the Russian Federation. 

** The Taliban is an organization under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.

*** Media and organizations recognized as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation are also included in the register of foreign agents.  

**** An individual included in the register of foreign agents. 

***** Organizations recognized as terrorist on the territory of the Russian Federation.