Posted on 02/28/2022 8:10:18 PM PST by Mariner
A Russian military convoy that was outside of Ivankiv, Ukraine, on Sunday has since made it to the outskirts of Kyiv, satellite images show.
On Sunday, the convoy was roughly 40 miles northwest of the Ukrainian capital, according to images provided by Maxar Technologies.
Maxar said that roughly 17 miles of roadway is chocked full of the convoy, which consists of armored vehicles, tanks, towed artillery and other logistical vehicles.
The private US company said the convoy was located on the T-1011 highway at Antonov air base around 11:11 a.m local time.
Antonov is roughly 17 miles from the center of the Ukrainian capital.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that the Crocus City Hall attackers originally fled toward Belarus not Ukraine, directly undermining the Kremlin narrative on Ukraine's involvement, possibly to head off questions about why the attackers headed toward Belarus in the first place. During a visit to Belarus’ northwestern Ashmyany raion on March 26, Lukashenko reported that the Crocus City Hall attackers may have been planning to escape Russia's Bryansk Oblast to Belarus, but that Belarus introduced a heightened security regime that forced the attackers to change course towards the Russia-Ukraine border.[1]
Lukashenko stated that the attackers “couldn't enter Belarus” and praised high levels of cooperation between Russian and Belarusian special services for leading to the attackers’ arrests. Lukashenko’s suggestion that the attackers were heading towards Belarus before Belarusian and Russian special services forced them to change direction flatly contradicts Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims regarding the attackers’ planned escape. Putin addressed the Russian Federation on March 23 following the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack and claimed that the attackers had “contacts” who had prepared a “window” for their exfiltration across the border into Ukraine, a claim for which there is no evidence that has become central to the Kremlin's baseless accusations that Ukraine was involved in or responsible for the attack.[2] Geolocated footage from March 23 shows Russian personnel capturing the four attackers in a forest area along the E101 highway about 20 kilometers southeast of Bryansk City, Bryansk Oblast.[3] The geolocated place of capture is about 95 kilometers from the Ukrainian border at the closest point, or 130 kilometers from where the E101 crosses into Ukraine. This point is notably about 124 kilometers from the Belarusian border, and about 25 kilometers away from the A-240 highway that runs to Gomel, Belarus. Lukashenko’s statement about the activation of Belarusian personnel suggests a scenario in which the attackers were initially traveling along the A-240 highway towards Belarus but saw roadblocks or other deterrents and shifted their course east through forest roads to the E101 route.
Lukashenko has very little evident incentive to lie about the facts of the attack in this way. The suggestion that the attackers were traveling towards Belarus, presumably to seek refuge there, could have damaging political consequences for Lukashenko and his regime as it would raise questions about why they thought they would be safer in Belarus and who they thought might receive them there. Lukashenko may therefore have desired to preempt discussions about the attackers’ hypothetical links to Belarus by saying that Belarusian forces were instrumental in leading to their arrests. While Lukashenko’s claim subverts the standing Kremlin narrative, it reduces his vulnerability to Kremlin efforts to use non-public information about the attackers’ original escape plans to pressure him in the future.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Kremlin officials appear to be struggling to maintain a consistent rhetorical line about the Crocus City Hall attack, indicating that the Kremlin has not fully figured out how to reconcile its information operations with the reality of its intelligence and law enforcement failure. Putin and other senior officials have not fully coalesced around the false narrative that Ukraine somehow conducted the March 22 attack on the Crocus concert venue for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility. Putin directly suggested that the attackers were connected to Ukraine in his March 23 address following the attack.[4]
Putin then addressed the board of the Russian General Prosecutor's Office on March 26 and referenced the Crocus attack, calling for the Prosecutor General's Office to establish all the facts of the case but not implicitly or explicitly blaming Ukraine for the attack.[5] Putin only mentioned the Ukrainian government once during an unrelated part of the address about returning Russia's “lost” property abroad — a notable change from his March 25 address that claimed Ukraine was the ”customer” of the attack and his March 23 accusation that the attackers were fleeing to Ukraine.[6] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov similarly refused to state outright on March 26 that Ukraine orchestrated the Crocus attack in response to a press question on how Russia would respond if Russia ”confirms” Ukraine's alleged involvement.[7] Putin's oscillation between blaming Ukraine outright one day and then avoiding the issue the following day suggests that the Kremlin has not yet established a templated line on how to discuss the attack, likely partially as a result of the shock felt by the Russian elite in its aftermath.
Other senior Russian officials have doubled down on the Kremlin's baseless narrative accusing Ukraine of conducting the attack, however, while conceding that Russian authorities currently lack critical information about the attack, seemingly contradicting their own statements and statements made by other Kremlin officials. Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Head Alexander Bortnikov accused the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) of conducting the attack with involvement from the United States and UK in order to create panic in Russian society — a longstanding Kremlin narrative line attempting to portray the war in Ukraine as an existential war against the collective West — but then stated that Russia has not yet identified the person who ordered the attack.[8] Bortnikov also emphasized that Russian security services conducted every possible measure to prevent the attackers from crossing into Ukrainian territory, aligning with Putin's March 23 address but contrasting with Lukashenko’s March 26 claims.[9] Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev answered a press question on March 26 about whether the Islamic State (IS) or Ukraine conducted the attack with “Ukraine, of course” then later doubled down on this narrative by claiming “many things point to Ukraine's involvement” while appearing on Russian state television channel Rossiya-1 and suggested that Russian special services and law enforcement agencies will eventually reach this conclusion.[10]
Russian officials are proposing actionable but likely impractical solutions to the emotional outcries for retribution in response to the Crocus City Hall attack. A Just Russia Party Leader Sergei Mironov called for Russia to abolish the visa-free regime with Central Asian countries in order to regulate migration and counter terrorist attacks.[11] Russian State Duma Deputy from occupied Crimea Mikhail Sheremet and State Duma Deputy Chairperson and recent New People Party presidential candidate Vladislav Davankov also recently proposed harsher measures against migrants in response to the Crocus City Hall attack.[12] Russian ultranationalists have intensified calls for anti-migrant measures since the Crocus City Hall attack, although a prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger criticized Mironov’s proposal to introduce a visa regime with Central Asian countries and claimed that a visa regime would damage Russia's relationship with Central Asian states and Russia's “compatriots” living there.[13]
Russian Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Head Leonid Slutsky called for Russia to lift the moratorium on the death penalty in response to the Crocus City Hall attack, and United Russia State Duma Deputy Alexander Spiridonov claimed that Russia should consider lifting the moratorium for charges of terrorism.[14] Mironov claimed that Russia could lift the moratorium on the death penalty through a federal referendum, while Russian State Duma Chairperson Vyacheslav Volodin claimed that the Russian Constitutional Court could lift the mortarium without a referendum.[15] The Russian Constitutional Court announced that it would not comment on issues about the death penalty because the issue may “become a subject of consideration.”[16] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, conversely, claimed on March 25 that the Kremlin is not discussing lifting the moratorium on the death penalty, despite continued calls by various Russian political leaders.[17] Russian officials are likely struggling to establish a cogent response to domestic calls for retribution following the Crocus City Hall attack, causing various Russian political factions to attempt to address the situation along diverging avenues. Russia is unlikely to introduce a visa regime with Central Asian countries given that Russia continues to heavily rely on Central Asian migrants to offset domestic labor shortages and to target Central Asian migrants for crypto-mobilization efforts.[18] The Russian government is also unlikely to lift the moratorium on the death penalty, which it established in 1996, the same year it officially executed the last death sentence.[19]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-26-2024
They were seen on videos from the concert hall, and then one of them was allegedly seen during the detaining in the forest. There is no confirmation of that as of now except for the blue sweaters, jeans and black watch straps. This is a set worn by every other Russian man.
But the experience of life in Russia itself confirms that “guys in blue sweaters” do exist.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1772724050042691976
IS-K consider most of the world to be their enemies. Russia is high up on their list, along with the US, Europe, Israel, Jews, Christians, Shia Muslims, the Taliban and all rulers of Muslim-majority states, who they consider to be “apostates”.
Islamic State's hostility to Russia goes back to the Chechen wars in the 1990s and early 2000s, when Moscow's forces devastated the Chechen capital Grozny.
More recently, Russia entered the Syrian civil war on the side of its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, and the Russian air force has carried out countless bombings of rebel and civilian positions, killing large numbers of Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda-linked fighters.
In Afghanistan, IS-K view Russia as being an ally of the Taliban, which is why they attacked the Russian embassy in Kabul in 2022.
They also bear a grudge for the 10 years of brutal Soviet occupation of that country from 1979-89.
Then there is the situation inside Russia itself.
Russia is viewed by IS-K as very much a Christian country and their video posted after the Moscow attack talks about killing Christians.
Tajik and other Central Asian migrant workers are sometimes subject to a degree of harassment and suspicion by the FSB as it seeks to head off terrorist attacks.
Finally, Russia - a nation currently distracted by its full-scale war with its neighbour Ukraine - may simply have been a convenient target of opportunity for IS-K, a place where weapons were available and their enemy's guard was down.
Russian officials are tying the US and the West to a broader set of “terrorist” attacks against Russia following the Crocus City Hall attack, likely to intensify rhetoric about alleged Western and Ukrainian threats to generate greater domestic support for the war in Ukraine. The Russian Investigative Committee and Prosecutor General's Office stated on March 27 that they will consider an appeal from the Russian State Duma to investigate American and Western financing and organization of terrorist attacks against Russia.[7] The Russian Investigative Committee, Prosecutor General's Office, and the Duma Deputies that made the appeal did not explicitly reference the Crocus City Hall attack.[8] Kremlin officials have previously tied Ukraine and the West to the Crocus City Hall attack but have yet to make a formal accusation, and the Kremlin may refrain from issuing an official accusation as all available evidence continues to show that the Islamic State (IS) is very likely responsible for the attack.[9]
Russian officials routinely describe Ukrainian military strikes against legitimate military targets in occupied Ukraine and Russia as terrorism and consistently claim that Western actors help organize these strikes.[10] The Kremlin likely aims to seize on wider Russian social fears and anger following the Crocus City Hall attack by portraying Ukraine, the US, and the West as immediate terrorist threats. The Kremlin likely hopes that perceptions of Ukrainian and Western involvement in the Crocus City Hall attack will increase domestic support for the war in Ukraine, and Russian officials will likely invoke a broader view of what they consider terrorism to further cast Ukrainians as terrorists and the West as a sponsor of terrorism.[11] The Kremlin may still formally accuse Ukraine of conducting the Crocus City Hall attack if it believes that these other informational efforts are insufficient to generate the domestic response it likely desires.[12]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-27-2024
We checked the rumors. It turns out this is true. In personal conversations, Dmitry Peskov, Sergei Kiriyenko and Nikolai Patrushev expressed doubts about the involvement of the Kyiv regime in the crime.
At the same time, of course, they do not express their opinion publicly and will strictly adhere to the official version. And Nikolai Platonovich, in order not to break the chain of command, even confirmed on camera the Ukrainian trace in the terrorist attack. True, he smiled ironically at this.
Alexander Bortnikov will actively promote the Ukrainian version. He is glad that the president did not punish him for the tragedy in Crocus (although there were every reason
[see below]). Please note that the sources that provided us with this information are very reliable. Among them, by the way, there are those who communicate with the press of countries unfriendly to Russia.
As for us, we are not going to somehow argue with the official version. But against the backdrop of the tragedy that the terrorist attack in Crocus brought to us personally, we really want to know the truth. We will learn new details of this terrible event.
https://t.me/kremlin_secrets/3841
Vladimir Putin wanted to visit the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Sunday, March 24. There he was going to pray and put a candle in memory of the victims in Crocus City Hall. But the president was persuaded not to go by security.
“There were signals that Vladimir Vladimirovich could be killed. So we provided maximum security for the president, practically “closed” him in Novo-Ogaryovo. He put a candle there. It's no big deal,” a high-ranking FSO official told us.
He also confirmed our information that the FSO gave the FSB a warning about a possible terrorist attack three days before the tragedy in Crocus. And he does not understand “why no measures were taken at all.” In addition, the interlocutor confirmed the data that Putin's security has been strengthened. By the way, this is why the President held a meeting on the terrorist attack in Crocus online.
When asked who might want Vladimir Vladimirovich dead, the FSO official did not answer the question. Our source in the Kremlin, for his part, believes that the president is now threatened by many enemies. But two are the greatest at the moment: internal ill-wishers who want to sow chaos in the country, and radical Islamists.
The FSB, through official channels, received intelligence information from the CIA about the preparation of new terrorist attacks on Russian territory. The sources do not disclose what data the Americans provided, but they say that this time there is more information than there was before the Crocus massacre .
An important detail: the Americans insist that ISIS is behind the attacks. Both the first and the subsequent ones. And yes, US intelligence has reported that at least three new attacks are being prepared. In this regard, Americans are recommended to leave Russia (this recommendation was published on the embassy's website at the beginning of the month).
Will the FSB react this time? I would like to believe that yes. Friends, take care of yourselves! Human life is the most important thing and must be protected.
Most people do not realize that CIA would notify individuals and adversarial countries of a potential threat, which is called “duty to warn.” It is taken seriously. If CIA comes across information that is credible and specific, then this duty to warn process is triggered. It is the ethical thing to do to prevent loss of innocent life, but it also sends a message to our adversaries about our knowledge and values.
It may make a foreign intelligence officer from an adversarial country think “if they try to protect even those from enemy countries, maybe they really would take care of me and protect me if I were a clandestine source for them.”
The threat reporting must be credible and contain enough details on the timing, location, and/or perpetrators of the attack that there is reason to believe that sharing the information would prevent innocent loss of life. And there has to be a way to reasonably share it.
When involved in previous “duty to warn” scenarios, I crafted the warning language in a way that provided as many details as possible in order to aid the local person or authorities to stop the attack. Yet also kept the language broad enough so it didn't point to a specific source of the information (which the Russians or other adversaries, for example, would promptly track down and arrest, imprison, and likely execute if given enough clues)
In past duty to warn situations, I notified CIA HQS that I assessed that information I gathered reached a “duty to warn” threshold and outlined my plans for notifying the target to fulfill the duty to warn.
The duty to warn should be given in a meaningful way that allows a person or local authorities to take action to stop the threat while also protecting CIA sources and methods. It could also be CIA HQS that comes across information that reached a duty to warn threshold, in which case HQS would notify the field office or appropriate officer to deliver the warning.
After the duty to warn is carried out, the CIA officer who issued it documents it in official cable traffic that they “fulfilled” the duty.
A duty to warn from CIA is not the same as the Department of State's travel or advisory warnings though they can be related, such as if State Department's information stems from HUMINT or SIGINT reporting. In which case, State would work closely with CIA and/or NSA to craft the warning language to protect sources and methods. CIA's own duty to warn process does not always involve State Department, as it is not the same as a “public” notification.
Essentially a duty to warn could run in parallel tracks, with CIA reaching out to an individual or foreign partner or adversary to provide the warning, possibly with additional details if they could be used by the individual or foreign entity to prevent the attack.
In parallel, State would issue a public warning if they assessed that US citizens abroad would also be at significant risk (which would have been the case in Russia recently). US Government agencies have to figure out how to characterize and share the information to both audiences without blowing the source.
https://twitter.com/laurae_thomas/status/1773094283320668526
In retrospect, it seems that the Russians focused too much on the 48 hours of the original “Duty to Warn” and not on the general threat of the ISKP, so they called off the threat after a few days. Hopefully they are not as unimaginative now.
In addition, the ISKP is active in Pakistan:
Five Chinese engineers were killed in Pakistan in a suspected suicide bomb attack on a bus.
https://twitter.com/SCMPNews/status/1772896343369175207
2 min video
and the explosion https://twitter.com/TahirBh09402843/status/1773087536618811481
Russia continues efforts to source ballistic missiles and other weapons from North Korea for use in Ukraine. North Korea-focused outlet NK Pro reported on March 27 that two Russian aircraft, including a Russian cargo plane reportedly involved in delivering North Korean missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine, traveled between North Korea and Russia on the night of March 20 to 21.[76] NK Pro reported that the cargo plane likely flew from Vladivostok to Pyongyang and that an unspecific South Korea-US intelligence source stated that the plane picked up unspecified cargo 50 feet in length, presumably short-range ballistic missiles. NK Pro noted that the other aircraft, a Russian Tu-154 passenger aircraft likely transporting a Russian government delegation, has flown between Vladivostok and Pyongyang at least four times over the past month.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-28-2024
Central Asia: The Call of ISIS | Jihad Recruitment in Tajikistan (Documentary)
Colonel Gulmurod Kalimov, head of Tajikistan's elite Special Forces and close to the president's family, was a man at the heart of the establishment. Trained in counter-terrorism by both the Russians and the Americans, he led the fight against Islamic extremists in Tajikistan. But in April 2015 he disappeared – only to reappear a few weeks later in an ISIS recruitment video calling on all Muslims in the former Soviet Union to come and join him. In the video, he criticised the corruption and incompetence of Tajikistan's leaders and promised to ‘bring slaughter’ to his former homeland.
The FSB was prohibited from announcing prevented terrorist attacks. Who framed Bortnikov?
FSB officers framed the head of the service, Bortnikov. On Friday, information appeared in the media, citing sources in the FSB, that a terrorist attack was prevented in the Stavropol Territory. It would seem that the good news is that the terrorist attack was prevented and no one was killed. But there is one subtle nuance.
Sources leaked information to journalists that the terrorist attack in the Stavropol Territory was being prepared by three citizens of “one of the Central Asian countries.” After the leak, the FSB had to officially acknowledge the detention of the suspects. According to our data, by the way, we are talking about citizens of Uzbekistan. But that’s not the point.
If we assume that the terrorist attacks in the Stavropol region and in Crocus are links in the same chain, then the release of information about Asians casts doubt on the official version of the terrorist attack in the Moscow region. The authorities, as we remember, insist on the Ukrainian trace. While the Americans, for example, talk about involvement in the ISIS terrorist attack. Of course, we trust our intelligence services, and there are a lot of real professionals working there. But the Americans warned us about the terrorist attack in Crocus, but no measures were taken. On that fateful day in Crocus, the son of the admin of our channel died .
The other day a warning came from the United States about new terrorist attacks. Will our services have time to react this time? I would like to believe that yes.
Interlocutors in the Kremlin called the information about the disruption of the terrorist attack in the Stavropol Territory a “mistake.” Although, it is possible that the leak of information is an attempt to displace Bortnikov and frame him in the eyes of the president.
“Inside the FSB there are those who advocate a change of generations (a hint that Bortnikov has been at the head of the intelligence service for the last 16 years - Ed.). There was a possibility that after Crocus we would face a purge in the ranks of the security forces, but the president was persuaded not to cut from the shoulder”, - said the interlocutor in the Kremlin. According to him, the FSB prohibited communication with the press about the prevented terrorist attacks. At least in the near future.
https://t.me/kremlin_secrets/3857
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 29, 2024
The Russian Investigative Committee continues to claim that it has evidence connecting Ukraine to the March 22 Crocus City Hall attack as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to garner more domestic support for the war in Ukraine.[88] Kremlin newswire TASS reported that the Investigative Committee’s Department for the Investigation of War Crimes, Genocide, and the Rehabilitation of Nazism is handling the terrorist attack case - a Kremlin effort to use legal mechanisms to legitimize its claims of Ukraine’s involvement.[89] ISW continues to assess with high confidence that the Islamic State (IS) conducted the Crocus City Hall attack and has yet to observe independent reporting or evidence to suggest that an actor other than IS was responsible for or aided the attack.[90]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-29-2024
A total of 1,795 cultural institutions have suffered damage at the hands of Russian forces in parts of the country that had been liberated by Ukrainian forces, the country’s acting Culture Minister Rostyslav Karandieiev announced on March 29.
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