President Vladimir Zelensky has responded to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's attempts to link the terrorist attack at Moscow's Crocus City Hall to Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials stated that the Ukrainian strike on occupied Sevastopol, Crimea on the night of March 23 targeted more Black Sea Fleet (BSF) ships and caused more damage than initially reported.
Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated on March 25 that Ukrainian forces struck the BSF ship repair plant in Sevastopol where the Yamal Ropucha-class landing ship was moored on March 23, making a hole in the Yamal’s upper deck and forcing BSF personnel to continuously pump water out of the ship.[20]
Ukrainian Navy Spokesperson Captain Third Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk stated that the March 23 Ukrainian strike on the BSF communications center caused substantial damage, which Pletenchuk assessed may significantly hinder the functioning of the BSF because the communications center supported the general activities of the fleet and may have also been responsible for the fleet’s provisions, ongoing repairs, and other important functions.[21] Pletenchuk reported that Ukrainian forces also struck the Ivan Khurs Yury Ivanov–class reconnaissance ship on March 23 and that Ukrainian officials are verifying the damage to the ship.[22] GUR Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated that Ukrainian forces used Ukrainian Maritime Autonomous Guard Unmanned Robotic Apparatus (Magura) V5 naval drones to strike the Ivan Khurs and Yamal ships and that these Ukrainian naval drones are becoming more powerful and accurate.[23] Skibitskyi stated that Ukrainian forces also used the Magura V5 drones to strike the BSF’s Akula-class and Serna-class ships in November 2023, the Ivanovets Tarantul-class corvette and the Ceasar Kunikov Ropucha-class landing ship in February 2024, and the Sergei Kotov large patrol ship in March 2024.[24] Pletenchuk and Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Colonel Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces have rarely used Kalibr missiles in recent months because the BSF naval base in Sevastopol is the only BSF base that has the infrastructure needed to reload these missiles onto Kalibr-capable ships.[25] ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian strikes against BSF ships and infrastructure will likely continue to deter Russian forces from redeploying ships to Sevastopol and the western Black Sea and complicate the BSF’s ability to maximize its combat capabilities.[26]
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- The March 22 Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall is a notable Russian intelligence and law enforcement failure, and explaining currently available open-source evidence does not require any wider and more complicated conspiracy theory either within or against the Russian state.
- Kremlin officials’ and Russian ultranationalists’ continued insistence on blaming Ukraine for an attack that IS-K very likely committed may come at the expense of Russian internal security and civilian lives.
- The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed that Lieutenant General Esedulla Abachev became the Leningrad Military District (LMD) Deputy Commander as the Russian military continues the formal disbandment of the Western Military District (WMD) and recreation of the LMD and Moscow Military District (MMD).
- Ukrainian officials stated that the Ukrainian strike on occupied Sevastopol, Crimea on the night of March 23 targeted more Black Sea Fleet (BSF) ships and caused more damage than initially reported.
- The Kremlin continues to lean on long debunked narratives as part of its wider information operations aimed at discrediting and undermining Western support for Ukraine.
- Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka on March 25.
Kremlin officials’ and Russian ultranationalists’ continued insistence on blaming Ukraine for an attack that IS-K very likely committed may come at the expense of Russian internal security and civilian lives….. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused the United States of making “excuses” for Ukraine in reporting that IS likely conducted the attack.[14] The IS claim of conducting the Crocus concert venue attack is notably consistent with prior IS-claimed attacks and IS risks discrediting itself in the global Salafi-Jihadi community by falsely claiming credit for high-profile attacks.[15] The Russian claims insisting on Ukrainian involvement, on the other hand, forward the Kremlin’s longstanding effort to justify its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the long-term by falsely portraying the existence of an independent and sovereign Ukraine as an existential threat to Russia. The Kremlin and its ultranationalist mouthpieces are evidently ignoring the clear threat that IS and IS-K operations inside Russian territory poses to Russia’s internal security and its civilians to prioritize instead the informational impacts of falsely accusing Ukraine of involvement while also maintaining a level of access to the ethnic minority communities that may be vulnerable to recruitment by IS-K and similar groups in order to retain a mobilizable resource for the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin has likely decided that the informational value of blaming Ukraine for the Crocus attack is worth whatever internal security risks and civilian casualties Russia may suffer for failing to adequately address a radical Salafi-Jihadi threat within its borders.
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Ukraine denied any involvement in the attack on the concert hall that killed at least 139 people.
Mr. Putin’s remarks reflected how the Kremlin seemed determined to muster its resources against what it apparently sees as its main enemy: Ukraine, backed by a coalition of Western states. They also added to a long list of issues that Moscow and Western capitals are at odds with.
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“The United States and Europe understand that any connection between Ukraine and the attack against Crocus City Hall would be suicidal for Kyiv and the whole anti-Russian alliance,” said one anchor, Dmitri Melnikov, in a report on Vesti Nedeli, the flagship weekly news show on Rossiya-1, the main state-owned television network.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. And the United States has said that the assault was the work of an ISIS offshoot, the Islamic State in Khorasan, and that there was no evidence implicating Ukraine.
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