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.
Bortnikov is by definition a member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle of advisors.
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.
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.
The United States is trying to convince everyone through various channels that there is no trace of Kyiv in the bloody terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall and that it was committed by the group “ISIL” (“Islamic State”, IS, a terrorist group banned in Russia).
The attack was carried out by radical Islamists, but Russia is interested in the customer of the crime, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on 25 March at a meeting on measures taken after the attack.
“We know in whose hands this atrocity against Russia and its people was committed. We are interested in who the customer is,” the head of state said.
Russia’s special services and law enforcement agencies will have to find answers to a number of questions, he said. “How do radical Islamists, who position themselves as faithful Muslims and profess the so-called pure Islam, commit serious atrocities and crimes in the holy month of Ramadan for all Muslims?” – the president noted.
Putin also said that the terrorist attack was an act of intimidation, which raises the question of who benefits from it. “This atrocity may be just one link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 at the hands of the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv,” the president said.
It is also necessary to answer the question of why the terrorists tried to hide in Ukraine and who was waiting for them there.
Seems Russia has a pretty good idea of who is behind the attack and is working towards putting the pieces together for clarity. The reference to seeking bomb shelters does not sound like the current war coming to an end but rather, widening and escalating. AIMO
