On Terrorist Attacks Organised with the Participation of Ukrainian Special Services

The terrible tragedy at Crocus City Hall on March 22, 2024, has shocked Russia and the international community. It has also put the issue of large-scale public terror back on the agenda, terror that is aimed at putting pressure on society, sowing panic and undermining the given country’s stability in the face of global challenges and threats.

The majority of countries worldwide demonstrated a natural human reaction to the tragedy, sending words of support and condolences to Russia and the Russian people.

At the same time, several hours after the tragedy, before the preliminary results of the investigation were made public and disregarding the unequivocal international condemnation of the attack, the Western media and US, UK and EU officials launched an information campaign to deny the Ukrainian security services’ involvement in that crime.

The editorial offices of the mainstream Western media were instructed to promote the version of the ISIS involvement in organising the attack in Krasnogorsk, to deny the possible connection between the Islamists and the Ukrainian government or Western security services, to discredit the results of investigation, and to advance various conspiracy theories about the alleged involvement of the Russian security services in the tragedy.

They were cautioned against showing sympathy and a humane attitude to the Russian people. An especially cynical part of the Western attempts to divert public attention from the real organisers and beneficiaries of the crime was the categorical instruction not to mention the real scale of the tragedy, that is, the number of victims, including children, and not to write about the attitude of ordinary people to it.

The resources of Russian-language media outlets and foreign agents abroad were used for this purpose. The media platforms controlled by fugitive oligarchs and members of the opposition hastily adjusted their editorial policy to give priority to biased speculations about the causes and consequences of the tragedy in Krasnogorsk. Their arguments are based on false assumptions from the book by Yuri Felshtinsky, Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within. Acting in the same spirit, the staff of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and MBK Media launched pseudo-investigations aimed at discrediting our law enforcement agencies and security services. But their main goal is to smear the Russian authorities and to create a pretext for destabilising Russian society.

Acting hand in glove with the Western media, the Kiev regime accused the Kremlin of involvement in the terrorist attack. The government-controlled Ukrainian media took up the narrative, shifting public attention to ISIS and keeping silent about the initial results of the investigation [1 – Supplement].

The online Ukrainian media with millions of subscribers hurried to provide a cannibalistic and Russophobic coverage of the consequences of the attack in Krasnogorsk.

Almost simultaneously with the terrorist attack, the Ukrainian units of information and psychological operations launched an aggressive online propaganda and recruitment campaign, encouraging people, mostly young people and teenagers, to carry out similar crimes for money. They sent mass emails with false news about other terrorist attacks in the adjacent districts of Krasnogorsk and Moscow and created fake social media accounts of alleged terrorists. In short, they took advantage of the natural public response to the tragedy to incite fear and a feeling of helplessness.

However, the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack is by far not the first terrorist attack on Russia in the recent past.

The Ukrainian security services adopted terrorism as a global confrontation method a long time ago. The Kiev regime is not hiding its interest in carrying out terrorist attacks to intimidate the public, disorganise governance, and create uncertainty and distrust in the authorities.

Since 2016, the Ukrainian regime has been consistently increasing the attempts to commit terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage against military and civilian sites in Russia [2].

With the direct, primarily technical, support of Western intelligence services, they have been obtaining sensitive intelligence information, planting agents, and recruiting perpetrators and accomplices. They have been perfecting their techniques and expanding the scope of hostile actions as they went from one-off targeted attacks to openly violent mass-scale terrorist attacks with unlimited fallout.

When the special military operation began, the Ukrainian special services’ terrorist activity has taken on an unprecedented, aggressive, and daring nature and engulfed almost all territory of the Russian Federation. In fact, the ongoing terrorism is viewed as an integral part of the combined military operation.

The attacks target the railway network and infrastructure using unmanned aircraft in the border areas and deep in the country. Acts of sabotage against strategic military and civilian targets are carried out [3]. They focus on destroying critical infrastructure facilities, such as the Crimean Bridge, petroleum and gas pipelines, airfields, oil refineries, and nuclear power plants in Kursk, Smolensk, Leningrad Region and Zaporozhye.

The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Defence Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine are behind the acts of sabotage that use light aviation, attack UAVs, and naval systems. Western intelligence services provide all-round intelligence and resource support.

The Military Intelligence and the Security Service use recruited persons and trained agents from among the Ukrainian citizens and residents of new regions to perpetrate the attacks. They also enlist the people who had left for Russia, including the ones who had left before the special military operation began.

In order to create the proper ideological foundation for radicalising certain groups of the population and coordinating terrorist attacks, Ukrainian psychological centres have deployed an aggressive propaganda campaign and massive recruitment efforts among young people, radicals, people on the fringes of society and people with mental conditions, as well as people with social and economic problems.

Footage of arsons of military enlistment offices and police stations committed by everyday people like pensioners, teachers, housewives, young people and minors circulated in the media shows that there are no age or social restrictions in recruiting perpetrators.

Fraud is used widely. Socially vulnerable individuals are provoked to take out loans and transfer money to “safe accounts,” and are subsequently encouraged to commit crimes under the pretext of special services operations or blackmailed to do so.

Quick money schemes are used in a variety of online messengers. People are encouraged to commit terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage, arson of military enlistment offices, police precincts, administrative buildings, or to damage or to destroy railway infrastructure [4]. An image of anonymous criminal acts that go unpunished is being promoted. Moreover, as a rule, no money is paid for the crimes committed by Russian citizens.

The terrorist movements controlled by Ukrainian security services such as Columbine and Maniacs. Cult of Murder that rely on hatred and mass killings have stepped up their activities. The recruiting psychologists controlled by Western intelligence services are operating in Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Kiev-controlled terrorist organisations, Russian Volunteer Corps and the Russian Freedom Legion, formed from the people with anti-Russian or pro-Ukrainian views, are directly involved in acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks. Officially, Kiev disassociates itself from these nationalist formations, calling them guerrillas and disavowing their ties with the Ukrainian forces. At the same time, these terrorist entities are, in fact, part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Military Intelligence.

The strategic objective is to inflict a military-political defeat on Russia, as well as maximum economic losses, destabilise the situation in the country and provoke protests.

The barbaric murders of Russian journalists Darya Dugina and Maxim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky), and Prosecutor-General of the Lugansk People’s Republic Sergey Gorenko served the same purposes. This also concerns attempts on the lives of writer Zakhar Prilepin, the heads of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions Yevgeny Balitsky and Vladimir Saldo, Interior Minister of the Lugansk People’s Republic Igor Kornet and First Deputy Head of the Kherson Region Vitaly Bulyuk. Law-enforcement agencies have prevented terrorist attacks on Margarita Simonyan, Konstantin Malafeyev and Vladimir Solovyov, as well as the leadership of the Republic of Crimea and the military-civilian administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions [5]. Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasily Malyuk discussed complicity in some of these attacks during his interview with ICTV television channel.

Law-enforcement agencies have obtained strong evidence of Ukrainian security services using psycho-chemical and general-purpose poison gases, banned by international conventions, while preparing attempts on the lives of the heads of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions and participants in the special military operation [6].

Large-scale daily attacks on the long-suffering Donetsk and the border region of Belgorod have claimed the lives of dozens of ordinary people, including women, old people and children. This is also part of a terror campaign unleashed by Ukraine. [7].

Russian security agencies have thwarted a series of multi-episode terrorist attacks in Belgorod by Ukrainian special services, targeting residential buildings and law-enforcement agencies. These attempts aimed to disrupt the presidential elections in the Russian Federation in March 2024, and were accompanied by an aggressive information campaign aimed at stoking panic among the population [8].

At the same time, Ukraine’s armed forces, together with the militants from Ukrainian nationalist battalions and terrorist organisations, the Russian Freedom Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, made multiple unsuccessful attempts to breach the Russian state border in the Belgorod sector of the Russian-Ukrainian border, resulting in civilian casualties. 

Contacts have been established between several Russian opposition figures and the leaders of undercover gangs of militants from the Caucasus, including Akhmed Zakayev, who is wanted by Interpol, with the Security Service of Ukraine and Western intelligence agencies. The rhetoric of these fugitive, non-systemic protest politicians clearly indicates their involvement. Their representatives openly voice their support for the Kiev regime. They openly form and finance nationalist units like the Separate Special Weapons and Tactics Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Chechnya-Ichkeria Republic. They also call for Western military intervention, and desire Russia’s defeat. They set up pseudo-government organisations in exile with the support of European politicians. Under the guise of anti-colonialism, they have begun collaborating with the Caucasus and South Caucasus diasporas in order to unleash terrorist attacks in southern Russia from Ukrainian territory [10].

Simultaneously, they are trying to incite inter-ethnic strife, xenophobia and nationalism in Russian society to initiate extremism-motivated conflicts.

A distinct focus of Ukrainian security services is to engage supporters of radical Islam based in Russia in terrorist activities.

They are orchestrating the recruitment of militants from international terrorist organisations in Syria, Türkiye, the Balkan region, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Central Asia to participate in hostilities alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including in nationalist battalions such as those named after Sheikh Mansur, Imam Shamil, and Dzhokhar Dudayev. With the coordination of British intelligence agencies, Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad are actively recruiting potential terrorists from other countries.

Therefore, it has become evident that the Kiev regime, backed by the collective West, is visibly increasing its terrorist activity.

Ukrainian security services have transitioned from traditional covert methods to open and large-scale acts of terror.

Meanwhile, the high level of trust the majority of Russians have in state authorities, as well as the unity and confidence in the correctness of the political and economic course demonstrated during the Russian presidential elections prompted the Ukrainian security services to escalate their tactics.

Striving to generate a public outcry and sow discord in Russia, to discredit the government, foster defeatist attitudes and despair in society, and instil widespread fear and panic, the Kiev regime decided to go big. With the approval of the West, they decided to resort to drastic measures regardless of the potential scale and consequences. Simultaneously, they are shifting the focus in the internal Ukrainian agenda, diverting public attention from setbacks on the front lines and the growing dissatisfaction among the people in Ukraine.

As a result, a terrorist attack was orchestrated and executed – a cold-blooded, ruthless slaughter of hundreds of innocent people at the Crocus City shopping centre. The chosen method aimed to evoke a maximum emotional response, leaving no one untouched. The perpetrators, disguised as members of the international terrorist organisation Islamic State - Khorasan Province, were recruited labour migrants from Tajikistan, who were under the influence of drugs during the attack.

The terrorist attack was meticulously plotted, with weapons and tools of terror procured in advance. Escape routes for the terrorists through the Russian-Ukrainian border were planned out.

According to the testimonies of the detained terrorists, following the attack, they were instructed to head towards the state border in the Bryansk Region, where they would set fire to the vehicle in a wooded area and inform their handler, who, acting through the Ukrainian security services, would help them cross the border and transport them to Kiev. The terrorists were promised one million roubles each for executing the terrorist attack.

At the same time as the criminals were heading towards the border, the presence of Ukrainian military and security services personnel was detected near the villages of Chuikovka and Sopych in the Shostkinsky District of the Sumy Region. They were observed using demining equipment, apparently attempting to create a corridor for the terrorist group to cross the border.

All the details surrounding this barbarous terrorist attack will be thoroughly investigated. The masterminds, organisers, and accomplices, regardless of their whereabouts, will be identified, unmasked and will receive just punishment.

Meanwhile, the March 22, 2024 events clearly showed that the Kiev regime and its foreign curators lack moral and ethical standards. Europe and the United States are not hiding the fact that they are using Ukraine to advance their own agenda. Western official and diplomatic circles openly demonstrate their revanchist sentiments and talk about a “historical moment” that will allow them to inflict a total defeat on Russia without directly participating in the hostilities, and to compensate for the “reputational losses from the Russians dating back to Napoleon and the Third Reich.” The collective West openly supplies Ukraine with weapons, explosives, equipment and intelligence for it to engage in terrorism, trains spec ops operatives and terrorists, and plots and plans attacks.

Considering the methods used at the level of official government bodies, the specifics of public administration, socio-political characteristics of society and external relations, the Kiev regime and the Ukrainian security services display the attributes of a terrorist entity at the government level, which is above and beyond humanistic concepts of what the state and society are all about. In fact, we are witnessing the creation of an aggressive ISIS-like terrorist regime, with the direct participation of the United States and a US-controlled pack of satellites, in the centre of Europe.

Addendum

[1] Against this background, Head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Vasily Malyuk spoke about the specific details of the murder of former Verkhovna Rada deputy Ilya Kiva, military correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky, LPR Prosecutor General Sergey Gorenko, and the attempted murder of writer Zakhar Prilepin and Head of the LPR Interior Ministry Igor Kornet in an interview with the Ukrainian television channel ICTV on March 25, 2024.

[2] In August 2016, members of a sabotage group operated by the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR MOU) Yevgeny Panov and Andrey Zakhtey who planned acts of sabotage in the Republic of Crimea against military and life support facilities and infrastructure, were detained.

In November 2016, five GUR MOU staff members were detained, namely, D. Shtyblikov, A. Bessarabov, V. Dudka, A. Stogniy, and G. Shabliy, who were planning to commit several high-profile acts of sabotage against military and life support infrastructure and facilities in Crimea.

In 2017, Major D. Dolgopolov, assistant chief of staff of the Russian Defence Ministry’s artillery regiment of the 126th Reconnaissance Brigade, and his wife A. Sukhonosova, were detained as members of the GUR MOU intelligence residence. In 2018, A. Slozhinsky, who gathered and shared information with GUR MOU, was detained.

The perpetrator of the murder attempt on the Mufti of the Republic of Crimea E. Ablayev was detained, and his Ukrainian customers were put on the international wanted list.

V. Babichev, curated by the SBU, who was planning acts of sabotage at electric power facilities, was detained in the Belgorod Region.

In 2019, an attempted act of sabotage by the GUR MOU was prevented at the railway station of Liski, Voronezh Region. The plan was to detonate a freight train car from the Donetsk People’s Republic using plastic and liquid explosives equipped with a standard combat detonation retarder.

In Moscow, an improvised explosive device (IED) was found on the undercarriage of a car driven by a member of the security forces, and neutralised.

In Balashikha, a radio-controlled high-explosive IED was detonated near an FSB site. A GUR MOU agent, a citizen of Ukraine, was involved in the preparation of a terrorist attack.

In 2020, members of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi unit, citizens of Russia A. Kulievich, born in 2000, N. Lagutin, born in 2001, V. Khoroshayev, born in 2002, V. Litau, born in 2000, and D. Reshetnichenko, born in 2002, who were planning a terrorist attack at a farmer’s market in Simferopol, were detained. The following was seized at their places of residence: a TT pistol with ammunition, 3 IEDs, components for making IEDs, cold steel and non-lethal guns. Criminal cases were opened under Part 1 Art. 30 item “a”, Part 2 Art 205, Part 1 Art 205.2, Part 2 Art 222.1, and Part 1 Art 280.1 of the Criminal Code of Russia.

In 2021, in the Voronezh Region, during an illegal crossing of the state border a GUR MOU agent on a mission to prepare a terrorist act of sabotage (DTA) was detained. Two IEDs were found during the search of his personal belongings.

A gas pipeline in the village of Perevalnoye, the Republic of Crimea, was blown up by perpetrators recruited by the GUR MOU and trained in sabotage warfare in Kherson.

[3] In 2022, 34 terrorist attacks and five sabotage attacks ordered by Ukrainian security services were prevented. In 2023, 153 terrorist attacks and 15 acts of sabotage were prevented. In the first quarter of 2024, 27 terrorist attacks and two acts of sabotage were prevented.

[4] In 2024, 41 arsons were committed, 55 involved persons were detained (2023 – 285, 342 detained; 2022 – 123, 136 detained).

[5] In 2022-2023, over 36 assassination attempts were prevented, including preparations for the assassination of the leadership of the Republic of Crimea and the military-civil administration of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, journalist Vladimir Solovyov, businessman and public figure Konstantin Malofeyev. The perpetrators and customers of 50 high-profile crimes have been identified, including the murder of journalist Darya Dugina, blogger Maxim Fomin (“Vladlen Tatarsky”), LPR Prosecutor General Sergey Gorenko, attempted murders of the writer and public figure Zakhar Prilepin, LPR Interior Minister Igor Kornet, and First Deputy Head of the Kherson Region Vitaly Bulyuk.

 [6] On September 14, 2023, the following SBU residency agents and citizens of Ukraine were detained in Melitopol: D. Kurshutov, G. Kapralov, A. Kapralova, who were plotting to assassinate the head of the Zaporozhye Region Yevgeny Balitsky and terrorist attacks against Russian servicemen from the Russian Defence Ministry. A criminal case was opened under Part 2 of Articles 205 and 355 of the Criminal Code of Russia. The following was seized from the cache equipped by the detainees: 6 vials with EA-3167 and Quinuclidin-3-ol chemical agents that are banned under the UN Convention, as well as 3 disguised explosive devices.

Quinuclidin-3-ol is listed in Schedule 2 of the CWC. As an independent substance, Quinuclidin-3-ol has a psychotoxic effect. It is used, including by tactile means, to incapacitate the victims (once the substance enters the system, a person has a prolonged psychosis burdened with disorientation and incoherent speech. The affected persons do not recognise faces and experience hallucinations).

The above drug was developed in Edgewood Arsenal, United States, as a liquid psychochemical poisoning agent under the code EA 3167.

Similar poisoning substances were used in the attempted murder of the Head of the Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo.

In October 2023, an attempt by SBU agent E. Semyonov to organise the mass murder of graduates (more than 50 people) of the P.S. Kutakhov Armavir Higher Military Aviation School of Air Defence Pilots, the Krasnodar Territory, by poisoning them with analeptic drugs was prevented. A criminal case was initiated under paragraph “a” Part 3 Article 205 of the Criminal Code of Russia.

In March 2024, four members of the Russian Volunteer Corps terrorist organisation were detained in St Petersburg. Upon the instructions of their Ukrainian handlers, they were plotting to poison servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation with a highly toxic chemical substance in the area of the special military operation. At the same time, the detainees were conducting reconnaissance of life support facilities, transport and other critical infrastructure located in St Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, with the aim of preparing more terrorist attacks.

 [7] On December 30, 2023, a massive missile attack by the Ukrainian forces on Belgorod killed 25 people and injured 109. On January 21, 2024, a market in the city of Donetsk was attacked, and 18 people were killed. In mid-March 2024, 152 people were injured, including 11 children, and 24 civilians were killed, among them two children, over a span of about two weeks of daily shelling of the Belgorod Region by the Ukrainian forces.

[8] In March 2024, the activities of the GUR MOU residency involved in preparations for the commission of a series of acts of terror and sabotage in Belgorod against law enforcement agencies, Russian Ministry of Defence facilities and residential buildings to destabilise the socio-political situation during preparations for the presidential election in the Russian Federation were suppressed. Six terrorists who had proactively established close relations with the intelligence services of Ukraine were detained. Six IEDs and improvised incendiary devices and components for their manufacture were seized. A criminal case was opened under Part 3, Article 30, Part 2, Article 205, and Part 3, Article 222.1 of the Russian Criminal Code.

 [9] The Congress of People’s Deputies of the Transitional Government was created. Its sessions were attended by members of the European Parliament, the parliaments of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, as well as representatives from the United States.

[10] On April 2, a conference titled “Assembly of the Peoples of the Caucasus” led by Ruslan Kutayev was held in Kiev with the participation of the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, as well as Akhmed Zakayev (Prime Minister of the unrecognised Chechen Republic of Ichkeria), Akhmad Akhmedov (Congress of the Peoples of Dagestan), K. Basilia (Assembly of Peoples of Georgia), and commanders of the Chechen and Dagestan nationalist battalions. Requests to Vladimir Zelensky to recognise independence and sovereignty of the “Free Dagestan and Chechnya” were initiated, and calls were issued to take part in combat operations on the side of the Ukrainian forces and to provide the resource support to the nationalist battalions.