Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov. Photo: Ukrainian military intelligence Telegram channel
The Russian authorities knew about a terror attack being planned on Russian soil since at least 15 February but did nothing to prevent it, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov claimed on Wednesday.
Speaking at a forum on strategic communications in Kyiv, Budanov alleged that Russia had received a tip off regarding the planned attack from its own military intelligence officers in Syria. As well as knowing where the attackers would be travelling from, the Russian authorities also knew which two countries they would pass through to reach Russia, Budanov added.
There were several reasons why the Russian authorities “allowed” the attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall, Budanov said, suggesting that Putin may have planned to use it as a pretext to remove several high-ranking government officials or that the country’s security services had “underestimated the scale” of the attack, expecting that it would be “more localised” and planning to “blame Ukraine for everything”.
Having initially allowed Friday’s attack to happen in an attempt to sow “controlled chaos”, Russia had since been unable to control the situation, Budanov said, as the death toll rose to 143. He also accused Russia of changing its story several times as it tried to implicate Ukraine in the massacre and called claims of Ukrainian involvement “nonsense”.
Top Kremlin officials have repeatedly blamed Ukraine for Friday’s attack, with Federal Security Service (FSB) director Alexander Bortnikov saying on Tuesday that Budanov and all others who “commit crimes against Russia” were a “legitimate target” for the Russian army.
