MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that it was “extremely hard to believe” that Daesh would have had the capacity to launch an attack on a Moscow concert hall last Friday that killed at least 140 people.
At a briefing with reporters, Zakharova instead doubled down on Moscow’s assertions, for which it has not yet provided evidence, that Ukraine was behind the attack on the Crocus City Hall, the deadliest Russia has suffered in 20 years.
Daesh has claimed responsibility for the massacre and US officials say they have intelligence showing it was carried out by the network’s Afghan branch, Daesh-Khorasan.
Ukraine has repeatedly denied it had anything to do with the attack.
But Zakharova said the West had rushed to pin responsibility on Daesh, as a way of deflecting blame from Ukraine and the Western governments that support it.
“In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to Daesh, pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions,” she said.
President Vladimir Putin has said the attack was carried out by Islamist militants but has suggested it was to Ukraine’s benefit and that Kyiv may have played a role.
He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a “window” for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.
On Tuesday, however, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said the gunmen had initially sought to cross into his country before turning away and heading toward Ukraine once they realized that crossings into Belarus had been sealed.
The director of Russia’s FSB security agency said on Tuesday that he believed Ukraine, along with the United States and Britain, were involved in the Moscow attack.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron responded on X, saying: “Russia’s claims about the West and Ukraine on the Crocus City Hall attack are utter nonsense.”
Russia says it’s hard to believe Daesh could have launched Moscow attack
https://arab.news/jsefe
Russia says it’s hard to believe Daesh could have launched Moscow attack
- Zakharova doubled down on Moscow’s assertions, for which it has not yet provided evidence, that Ukraine was behind the attack on the Crocus City Hall
- Ukraine has repeatedly denied it had anything to do with the attack
Trump tells Britain he does not need its help to win Iran war
- Rejects deployment of UK aircraft carriers to help the US and Israel in their war with Iran
- Trump was reacting to reports that the UK was preparing the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier for possible deployment
Trump was reacting to reports that the UK was preparing the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier for possible deployment
DOVER, US: President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Britain is giving “serious thought” to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East, but added that the US does not need them to win the war with Iran, in the latest clash between the military allies.
“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,”
Trump said. "That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer,” Trump posted to his Truth Social account.
“But we will remember,” he said. “We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!“
Trump posted the message shortly after attending the return of the first six US service members killed in the Middle East war, at Dover Airforce Base in the northeastern state of Delaware.
British media reports say the Royal Navy is preparing the HMS Prince Wales, an aircraft carrier currently at Portsmouth in southern England, for possible deployment to the Middle East, but no final decision had been made.
Trump has said he is “not happy with the UK,” mocking Starmer by saying “this is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
The social media post comes after the British Ministry of Defense said on Saturday it was preparing the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier for possible deployment.
But no final decision has been taken about whether to deploy the aircraft carrier to the Middle East, a British official said.
Starmer has defended his decision not to allow US forces to use British bases to support initial strikes on Iran, saying he needed to be satisfied that any military action was legal and well planned.
He later granted US forces permission to use British bases for what he called defensive strikes against Iranian missiles in storage depots or launchers.
Starmer earlier this year criticized Trump’s desire to buy Greenland and said his comments that European troops avoided frontline combat in the war in Afghanistan were “frankly appalling.”
