I am very pleased that WION, India’s premier English language global news broadcaster took the initiative and discussed with me the significance of the statements yesterday to Russian television by FSB boss Alexander Bortnikov.

Bortnikov alleged that the the United States, the United Kingdom and Ukraine were the plotters and planners of the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in a Moscow suburb. What is the scenario of the crime emerging from the investigation being conducted by Russian intelligence services?

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RMFLQVym7M

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Das heutige 13-minütige Interview im indischen Fernsehen WION: “Russischer FSB sagt, dass die USA, Großbritannien und die Ukraine hinter dem Angriff auf Moskau stecken / Was ist die Wahrheit?”

Ich freue mich sehr, dass WION, Indiens führender englischsprachiger globaler Nachrichtensender, die Initiative ergriffen und mit mir über die Bedeutung der gestrigen Äußerungen von FSB-Chef Alexander Bortnikow im russischen Fernsehen diskutiert hat.

Bortnikow behauptete, dass die Vereinigten Staaten, das Vereinigte Königreich und die Ukraine die Verschwörer und Planer des Terroranschlags auf die Konzerthalle Krocus-Stadthalle in einem Moskauer Vorort waren. Welches Verbrechensszenario ergibt sich aus den Ermittlungen der russischen Geheimdienste?

Siehe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RMFLQVym7M

Transcript below by a reader

Interviewer: 0:00
The director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, said on Tuesday that the US, UK and Ukraine were behind the Moscow concert hall attack that killed at least 139 people on Friday. Despite repeated claims of responsibility by Islamic State and repeated claims by the West that Islamic State was behind this, this is the claim which comes from the Russian FSB. Now Russian president has also insisted on an alleged Ukrainian involvement here.

No proof has been provided for these claims. Then why is Russia insisting that there was a Western hand behind those attacks? What is the FSB basing its remarks on? To discuss matters further, we are being joined by Dr. Gilbert Doctorow. Always a pleasure speaking with you, sir. He is a political analyst, professional Russia watcher, author and historian joining us from Brussels.

Sir, I want to get to it immediately. An IS affiliate claimed it carried out the attack on Moscow. A US intelligence report said that it had information confirming the group was responsible. French President Emmanuel Macron said France also has intelligence pointing to an IS entity as responsible for the attack. And Ukraine obviously has claimed that it has no involvement in this. Why is Mr. Putin insisting on an alleged Ukrainian involvement? Why is the FSB saying that US, UK and– US Ukraine were involved here as well?

Doctorow: 1:24
First I’d like to explain that Mr. Bortnikov is not a public figure on Russian television. He sits by his desk at the FSB, unlike his counterpart in the international intelligence agency, service of Russia, that is, Mr. Naryushkin, who we see on television quite often. Mr. Bortnikov sits in his office, and for him to have come and taken an interview with a state television journalist, Pavlo Zarubin, was extraordinary.

What he said was still more extraordinary. And it’s amazing that major international media have not picked up on this. I’m very pleased that you have. The fact is that Mr. Bortnikov is a close associate of Mr. Putin. He has been in that position as head of the FSB for 15 years. And it is unthinkable that he would say what he said yesterday without the approval of his boss. Now, what does this mean and why is this remarkable?

Because going back two years to the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, which was the most spectacular act of terrorism against civilian global infrastructure in 50 years, the Russians said nothing about. They didn’t point a finger at anyone. There was innuendo the United States was involved, Britain was involved, other countries, but never a direct accusation. What we had yesterday was a direct accusation. At the same time, Mr. Bortnikof explained– he was very, very calm, he had great poise and he chose his words carefully– he said that he is not speaking out of emotion.

3:02
He’s speaking on the basis of preliminary findings, and that when all the findings are ready, when he has solid facts, he will present them. But he expects to find those. And this is in connection with something else which has been very little reported in Western media. That is to say, the discovery that two of the assailants went to Istanbul in the last days of February and were there until the 2nd of March. It has also been revealed on Russian television that the objective of this terrorist attack had been for a strike against a major venue, probably the same Crocus, but it’s not relevant, a major venue for 8th of March, International Women’s Day, a day that is sacred in Russian calendar and a day that is one week before the presidential elections. The whole logic of this operation would have been to devastate the proceeding Russian elections on the 15th to 17th of March.

However, the United States intelligence, this according to the Russians, discovered that this was not feasible, that Russian security was very tight for the 8th of March, and the mission would fail. We note that several related facts, Madame Nuland, Victoria Nuland, was fired on the 5th of March. It’s highly interesting that this coincidence. I and others have spoken of her connection with the German generals plotting a strike on the Kerch Bridge using their cruise missiles.

4:40
However, it is more likely that she was fired because the mission that she had supervised to attack Russia, a terrorist attack, using Islamic extremists on the 8th of March was no longer operable. We are told the Ukrainians are saying that the– that is, the Russians are saying that the Ukrainians proceeded with a terror attack against the objections of the United States because it had lost its rationale. It was supposed to take place before the elections. Instead the Ukrainians staged it one week after the elections, and there is a point of dispute. But when you say that the Russians are … accusing Ukraine, I think it’s missing the bigger issue: the Russians are accusing the United States, and Great Britain. And that puts us in a situation as critical as we were in the worst days of the Cuban missile crisis.

Interviewer 5:59
Dr. Doctor, I just want to comment here. Now, essentially what you’ve made a lot of major points here. The attack was essentially aimed to kind of throw off the Russian elections, which were scheduled from the 15th to the 17th of March, where President Putin was expected to win, and there was no doubt on that. But this was essentially planned for the 8th of March, Women’s Day, an important day in Russia. And since they were unable to execute it then, Ukraine did not have enough– that’s what you’re claiming– that Ukraine was wanting to go ahead with it still. It did not have the blessing of the U.S. And they continued with it and went ahead with it after the elections.

There are a lot of claims here. As far as Mr. Bortnikov coming out and making these claims, somebody who doesn’t come in the public eye, I understand that aspect. Is there something more substantial to put all of this together, or to use as proof as of now, or just the fact that they were heading into Ukraine– I’m talking about the four gunmen who were detained in Briansk while they were on route to Ukraine– is that the only bit of solid evidence we have at the moment to suggest a Ukrainian involvement?

Doctorow:
That’s precisely so, and Mr. Bortnikov was not beating around the bush. He said precisely what you have said. They are working on expanding further the information leads they have now on the connections with ISIS in Istanbul on the timing of the American warning to Russia that a terrorist attack could take place. Let’s remember: that was on the 7th of March. That’s to say two days after Victoria Nuland was fired, and one day before the planned execution of the terrorist attack in Moscow.

So the bits and pieces, the dots, are taking are falling into place. I repeat that Mr. Bortnikov would never dare to say what he said yesterday without the blessing of Mr. Putin. And Mr. Putin has always been a very cautious player.

Interviewer: 7:44
Mr. Doctorow, I also wanted to get your thoughts on this. Now, Lukashenko from Belarus, he had mentioned that they were trying to escape to Ukraine because Belarus, their border security wasn’t one that they could have been able to infiltrate, and they inevitably chose to go towards Ukraine. There is another interesting aspect here. When you talk about the getaway plan for these gunmen, there are not two nations but three nations which are in immediate vicinity.

There is Belarus which is right in the line of escape, then there is Ukraine where they eventually were trying to head towards because Briansk is, if you look at the map, it is diagonally towards Ukraine. And if they were caught in Briansk, that means their getaway plan was clear to go towards Ukraine. They did not take a detour later on.

There is also Latvia, which also could have been an option for them to get away. And Latvia and Russia, they share a border which is somewhere 180 to 190 kilometers and it is not very well supported, it is not very well built. Half of it, nearly 50 kilometers, doesn’t even have a barricade over there. And over 150 kilometers is yet to be developed properly. Wasn’t that an easier way to get away from– wasn’t that an easier option for them? Given the fact that there is lesser security in the borders since they refused to go towards Belarus. Latvia, of course, being a NATO nation, would have complicated it far beyond belief. But do you think Latvia was an option for the getaway?

Doctorow: 9:14
There are many unanswered questions, one of which, which hardly ever is raised, is what would await these terrorists when they cross the Ukrainian border? It’s assumed they would be treated like heroes. I think it’s more likely they would have been shot dead on the spot, to eliminate all sources of information.

If they went to Latvia, it’s not clear what would happen. They could very well be held in custody. And that’s the last thing that the plotters wanted, that is, the foreign plotters wanted, was for these people to be alive and well and able to talk to the Russians. So there is a drawback here.

But I’d like to call attention to something that’s otherwise not noted in our coverage. That is the nature of the escape plan. It would have been logical, more logical in a way, for these assailants to have disappeared into the Russian Metro. They would be anonymous. They would be very hard to track. But that’s not what happened. Instead, they got into the same white Renault car that brought them from about six kilometers away from where they were lodging to the Crocus venue. They got back in that car. The emphasis in the whole escape was on speed, to do with blinding speed so that the Russians wouldn’t catch up with what was happening until these assailants crossed the frontier into Ukraine.

10:37
It is remarkable they were in the same car, because the car had been, obviously had been taken on video recorders, that of security devices that all of these major venues have around them. That was ignored. The assumption was that the Russians would be too slow and too uncoordinated to put all this together in an actionable way. But that was a mistake. They were so coordinated.

Interviewer: 11:03
Dr. Doctorow, of course, the most pertinent question at the moment, among the many other pertinent questions, how do you feel this is going to impact the ongoing war in Ukraine?

Doctorow:
Disastrously for Ukraine, and I hope not disastrously for us. The discussions now on the premier Russian talk shows– and I have in mind the Vladimir Solovyov show of last night– have taken a radical turn towards violence. One of the Duma members, a member of a key committee on relations with the former Soviet Union, said last night openly, it’s time to raze Kharkiv to the ground.

We should give– Kharkiv is where the terrorist attacks, the Russians call them terrorist attacks; they are missile and artillery attacks, and also border incursions on the Belgorod frontier region of Russia. They’re coming from Kharkiv. They are intolerable. Dozens of Russian civilians are being killed each week. And that makes very bad news on Russian television. And there are patriots who say,

“Time to finish this. The Ukrainians are no longer our friends. They never again will be our friends. And it’s time to give a notice to Kharkiv that everyone should get in their car, pack their cars and head west, because we’re going to level Kharkiv to the ground.”

That language did not exist until after this terrorist event. There’s also talk yesterday on the Solovyov show,

“It’s time to flatten the presidential palace in Kiev, time to flatten all of the decision-making military and civilian institutions in Kiev.”

That violent language did not take place until now.

Interviewer: 12:47
All right, that was Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, sharing a lot of insights on us. He’s a keen professional Russia watcher, and of course has a lot of insights on things that most media houses are not discussing at the moment. There is a perspective which does not make it to the rest of the world. And that is what we are bringing to you right here on WION World is One. Thank you so much for your time, Doctor.

Doctorow:
Thanks for the invitation.

To the uninitiated, I explain first that the FSB is the successor organization to the Soviet Union’s well-known and much feared KGB.  However, the FSB today might be better compared with the FBI in the United States. It deals with domestic criminality of all kinds and with threats to Russian civilians such as terrorism. The agency and its head are rarely in the news.

In this respect, the FSB is less visible both at home and abroad than the Foreign Intelligence Service  headed by Sergei Naryshkin, a state figure who spent five years of this millennium as chairman of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of the legislature, and also three years as head of the Presidential Administration. In both positions Naryshkin was very often seen on television performing his duties.

By contrast, Bortnikov spent the past 15 years in his FSB offices out of sight.  However, the spectacular attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue has propelled him to center stage and yesterday he met with the Russian state television journalist Pavel Zarubin for an interview and then allowed himself to be questioned further by a gaggle of other journalists on his way out along a corridor. This spontaneous Q&A was later broadcast on the television news. What Bortnikov had to say was extraordinary and bears directly on whether you and I should now be looking for bomb shelters. Regrettably you will not find any of it in the lead stories of today’s mainstream media.  The Financial Times, for example, features an account of Xi’s meeting with CEOs of American businesses to mend ties: interesting, but not very relevant if we are at the cusp of WWIII.

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Bortnikov is by definition a member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle of advisors. He, Putin and Naryshkin are all roughly the same age. At 72, Bortnikov is just several years older.

I was struck in particular by his poise and prudent, carefully weighed choice of words while setting out where the investigation is heading with transparency and a ‘let the chips fall where they may’ unaffected demeanor.

The journalists were all probing the question of who stood behind the terror attack. Bortnikov told them…and us: standing behind the terror act committed by Islamist extremists are the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine.

Bortnikov said that the preliminary findings indicate that the four perpetrators of the slaughter were headed by car to the border with Ukraine where they were awaited on the other side. He very calmly explained that the involvement of foreign powers is being clarified and that he will say nothing out of pure emotion now but will wait for the facts to be solidly collected before being presented.

Nonetheless, it was entirely newsworthy that he named the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine as the likely puppet masters of the terror act. Let us remember that following the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, the most significant attack on critical civilian infrastructure globally in the last 50 years, Russian officials did not point the finger directly at any country. There was innuendo but no direct accusations such as we heard from Bortnikov yesterday.

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Meanwhile, quite apart from Mr. Bortnikov’s chat with journalists, a lot of new elements to the terror attack at Crocus City Hall were posted yesterday on the Russian state television news and analysis program Sixty Minutes. In particular, we learned that in the last days of February and first couple of days of March two of the four attackers were in Istanbul. The departure and arrival of one at a Moscow airport was recorded on video. We were told which hotels they stayed in, and the selfies and other photos taken by one in Istanbul were put up on the screen. It is still not clear with whom they met in Turkey. However, the timing itself is very important, because the point was made that they returned to Moscow to carry out a terror attack on 8 March, International Women’s Day, a sacred date on the Russian calendar. Had they done so on that day, the effect would have been catastrophic for the presidential elections in Russia one week later.

However, per Sixty Minutes, it was determined that Russian state security on 8 March was too tight for the terrorist mission to succeed and the United States decided to pull the plug on that operation. Note that this is approximately the time when Victoria Nuland tendered her resignation at the State Department (5 March).  The possible causal link here surely deserves attention by my peers in the U.S. ‘dissident’ community.

In any case, the scenario which was explored later in the day on the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show is that the Ukrainians decided to proceed with the terror attack a week after the Russian presidential elections, when it lost most of its rationale.  They did so over the objections of Washington.

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From time to time, readers ask why I pay attention to talk shows like Vladimir Solovyov’s.  These skeptics tend to ignore that Solovyov invites not just the usual irresponsible academics and journalists who can amuse the public but also some very serious statesmen who are close to the center of power in Russia and exert influence on the conduct of foreign and domestic policy, including in particular committee chairmen and other key personalities from the State Duma.

So it was last night when we heard from a member of the Committee on Relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States (Former Soviet Union). With reference to the never ending terror attacks on civilians in the Russian border region of Belgorod coming from nearby Kharkiv (Ukraine), he said it is time to raze Kharkov to the ground: issue a warning to the population to get in their cars and head West, then blow it all to bits.  Kharkiv is, by the way, Ukraine’s second most populous city after Kiev.

In general, the mood of panelists and of the host Solovyov himself is now changing in a cardinal manner: Ukraine is seen as an enemy state and the sooner it is finished off the better. There was talk last night on the need for missile strikes to flatten the presidential palace in Kiev along with all military and other decision making government centers in the capital.

As we have observed repeatedly over the past two years. President Putin has been a voice for moderation and restraint, resisting actions that might precipitate WWIII.  That is clearly coming to an end when his own FSB director names the United States and the UK as planners of the biggest terror attack in Russia in 20 years.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Die gestrigen bemerkenswerten Äußerungen von Alexander Bortnikov, Direktor des russischen Föderalen Sicherheitsdienstes (FSB), gegenüber Journalisten

Für Uneingeweihte erkläre ich zunächst, dass der FSB die Nachfolgeorganisation des bekannten und gefürchteten KGB der Sowjetunion ist. Allerdings könnte man den FSB heute eher mit dem FBI in den Vereinigten Staaten vergleichen. Er befasst sich mit inländischer Kriminalität aller Art und mit Bedrohungen für die russische Zivilbevölkerung wie dem Terrorismus. Die Behörde und ihr Leiter sind nur selten in den Nachrichten zu sehen.

In dieser Hinsicht ist der FSB im In- und Ausland weniger sichtbar als der Auslandsnachrichtendienst unter der Leitung von Sergej Naryschkin, der in diesem Jahrtausend fünf Jahre lang Vorsitzender der Staatsduma, des russischen Unterhauses der Legislative, und drei Jahre lang Leiter der Präsidialverwaltung war. In beiden Positionen war Naryschkin sehr oft im Fernsehen bei der Ausübung seiner Pflichten zu sehen.

Bortnikow hingegen verbrachte die letzten 15 Jahre in seinen FSB-Büros im Verborgenen. Der spektakuläre Anschlag auf das Konzerthaus am Krokus hat ihn jedoch ins Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit gerückt. Gestern traf er sich mit dem Journalisten des russischen Staatsfernsehens, Pawel Zarubin, zu einem Interview und ließ sich dann auf dem Weg nach draußen auf einem Korridor von einer Schar anderer Journalisten weiter befragen. Diese spontane Fragerunde wurde später in den Fernsehnachrichten ausgestrahlt. Was Bortnikov zu sagen hatte, war außergewöhnlich und hat direkten Einfluss auf die Frage, ob Sie und ich jetzt nach Luftschutzbunkern suchen sollten. Bedauerlicherweise werden Sie nichts davon in den Leitartikeln der heutigen Mainstream-Medien finden. Die Financial Times zum Beispiel berichtet über Xis Treffen mit den CEOs amerikanischer Unternehmen, um die Beziehungen zu verbessern: interessant, aber nicht sehr relevant, wenn wir uns an der Schwelle zum Dritten Weltkrieg befinden.

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Bortnikow ist per definitionem ein Mitglied des inneren Beraterkreises von Wladimir Putin. Er, Putin und Naryschkin sind alle ungefähr gleich alt. Mit 72 Jahren ist Bortnikov nur einige Jahre älter.

Besonders beeindruckt haben mich seine Gelassenheit und seine besonnene, sorgfältig abgewogene Wortwahl, mit der er die Richtung der Ermittlungen transparent und ungekünstelt nach dem Motto “Wir werden ja sehen…” darlegte.

Die Journalisten gingen alle der Frage nach, wer hinter dem Terroranschlag steht. Bortnikov sagte ihnen… und uns: Hinter dem von islamistischen Extremisten begangenen Terrorakt stehen die Vereinigten Staaten, Großbritannien und die Ukraine.

Bortnikov sagte, dass die ersten Erkenntnisse darauf hindeuten, dass die vier Täter mit dem Auto zur ukrainischen Grenze fuhren, wo sie auf der anderen Seite erwartet wurden. Er erklärte sehr ruhig, dass die Beteiligung ausländischer Mächte geklärt werde und dass er jetzt nichts aus reiner Emotion sagen werde, sondern abwarten werde, bis die Fakten solide gesammelt seien, bevor er sie präsentiere.

Nichtsdestotrotz war es durchaus berichtenswert, dass er die Vereinigten Staaten, Großbritannien und die Ukraine als wahrscheinliche Drahtzieher des Terroraktes benannte. Wir sollten uns daran erinnern, dass russische Beamte nach dem Bombenanschlag auf die Nord-Stream-Pipelines, dem weltweit bedeutendsten Angriff auf kritische zivile Infrastrukturen in den letzten 50 Jahren, nicht direkt mit dem Finger auf ein Land gezeigt haben. Es gab Andeutungen, aber keine direkten Anschuldigungen, wie wir es auch gestern von Bortnikow gehört haben.

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Abgesehen von Herrn Bortnikovs Gespräch mit Journalisten wurden gestern in der Nachrichten- und Analysesendung “Sechzig Minuten” des russischen Staatsfernsehens viele neue Informationen über den Terroranschlag auf das Krokus-Zentrum veröffentlicht. Insbesondere erfuhren wir, dass sich zwei der vier Angreifer in den letzten Februartagen und in den ersten Märztagen in Istanbul aufhielten. Der Abflug und die Ankunft des einen auf einem Moskauer Flughafen wurden auf Video aufgezeichnet. Wir erfuhren, in welchen Hotels sie sich aufhielten, und die Selfies und anderen Fotos, die einer von ihnen in Istanbul machte, wurden auf dem Bildschirm gezeigt. Es ist immer noch nicht klar, mit wem sie sich in der Türkei getroffen haben. Der Zeitpunkt selbst ist jedoch sehr wichtig, denn es wurde darauf hingewiesen, dass sie nach Moskau zurückkehrten, um am 8. März, dem Internationalen Frauentag, einem heiligen Datum im russischen Kalender, einen Terroranschlag zu verüben. Hätten sie dies an diesem Tag getan, hätte dies katastrophale Auswirkungen auf die eine Woche später stattfindenden Präsidentschaftswahlen in Russland gehabt.

Laut “Sechzig Minuten” wurde jedoch festgestellt, dass die russische Staatssicherheit am 8. März zu streng war, um die terroristische Mission zum Erfolg zu führen, und die Vereinigten Staaten beschlossen, diese Operation abzubrechen. Man beachte, dass dies ungefähr der Zeitpunkt ist, an dem Victoria Nuland ihren Rücktritt im Außenministerium einreichte (5. März). Der mögliche kausale Zusammenhang verdient sicherlich die Aufmerksamkeit meiner Kollegen in der amerikanischen “Dissidenten”-Gemeinschaft.

Das Szenario, das später am Tag in der Talkshow “Abend mit Vladimir Solovyov” erörtert wurde, besagt jedenfalls, dass die Ukrainer beschlossen haben, den Terroranschlag eine Woche nach den russischen Präsidentschaftswahlen durchzuführen, als er den größten Teil seiner Berechtigung verlor. Sie taten dies gegen die Einwände Washingtons.

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Von Zeit zu Zeit fragen mich Leser, warum ich Talkshows wie der von Wladimir Solowjow Aufmerksamkeit schenke. Diese Skeptiker neigen dazu, zu ignorieren, dass Solowjow nicht nur die üblichen nicht verantwortlichen Akademiker und Journalisten einlädt, die das Publikum unterhalten können, sondern auch einige sehr ernsthafte Staatsmänner, die dem Machtzentrum in Russland nahe stehen und Einfluss auf die Gestaltung der Außen- und Innenpolitik ausüben, darunter insbesondere Ausschussvorsitzende und andere wichtige Persönlichkeiten der Staatsduma.

So war es auch gestern Abend, als wir von einem Mitglied des Ausschusses für die Beziehungen zur Gemeinschaft Unabhängiger Staaten (ehemalige Sowjetunion) hörten. Mit Bezug auf die nicht enden wollenden Terroranschläge auf die Zivilbevölkerung in der russischen Grenzregion Belgorod, die aus dem nahegelegenen Charkiw (Ukraine) kommen, sagte er, es sei an der Zeit, Charkiw dem Erdboden gleichzumachen: eine Warnung an die Bevölkerung auszusprechen, in ihre Autos zu steigen und nach Westen zu fahren, und dann alles in die Luft zu jagen. Charkiw ist übrigens nach Kiew die zweitgrößte Stadt der Ukraine.

Generell hat sich die Stimmung der Diskussionsteilnehmer und des Gastgebers Solowjow selbst grundlegend geändert: Die Ukraine wird als feindlicher Staat betrachtet, und je schneller sie vernichtet wird, desto besser. Gestern Abend wurde über die Notwendigkeit von Raketenangriffen gesprochen, um den Präsidentenpalast in Kiew sowie alle militärischen und anderen entscheidungsrelevanten Regierungszentren in der Hauptstadt zu zerstören.

Wie wir in den letzten zwei Jahren immer wieder beobachten konnten: Präsident Putin war eine Stimme der Mäßigung und Zurückhaltung und hat sich gegen Aktionen gewehrt, die den Dritten Weltkrieg auslösen könnten. Damit ist nun eindeutig Schluss, wenn sein eigener FSB-Direktor die Vereinigten Staaten und das Vereinigte Königreich als Planer des größten Terroranschlags in Russland seit 20 Jahren nennt.