West covering up real culprits behind Crocus attack: Russia
3 Min Read
The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the West of manipulating the media narrative reporting on the Crocus concert attack to cover up for the perpetrators.
-
Saturday, March 23, 2024, firefighters work in the burned concert hall after an attack on the building of the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow, Russia. (AP)
The Russian Foreign Ministry claimed on Monday that Western media has been instructed to conceal the truth about the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert in Moscow as a means to dilute sympathy with the Russian people.
The ministry also added that media manipulation serves to "distract" the world from the real perpetrators of the attack.
In its statement, the Foreign Ministry dubbed the move as "cynical due to categorical instructions not to publish the true scale of the tragedy in the media, not to mention the number of victims of the terrorist attack, the dead children, and not to demonstrate the reaction of ordinary citizens to the incident."
It added that special instructions had been given that spread a distorted narrative of the attack that implicated ISIS.
Russia believes that it is "extremely hard to believe" that ISIS is behind the wide and fatal attack on the Moscow concert hall, as Russian intelligence and security officials believe Ukraine and allied Western backers are behind it.
US covering up for Crocus venue attackers
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) asserted on April 1 that the United States is covering up for the Crocus concert terrorists while the administration of US President Joe Biden is aiming to distort the events of what took place.
"The US is covering those responsible for the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reports that Joe Biden's administration is stepping up work to form a distorted picture of the large-scale terrorist attack that took place in Russia on March 22," the statement said.
It added that US special services are working to remove suspicions from the world's views of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's involvement in the Crocus attack.
"The murder of civilians in the Moscow region [in the Crocus City Hall] is directly related to the massive shelling and attacks of the Ukrainian sabotage groups in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. At the same time, the data received by the SVR indicates that when organizing attacks, Ukrainians actively use satellite information provided to them by US intelligence," the SVR statement continued.
Read more: Russia launches probe into fire safety dept over Crocus attack
