On Friday, one of the deadliest attacks on the Circus City Hall of Russia took place, which resulted in the deaths of about 133 civilians and injured a lot more people there.
As soon as the news of this attack spread, Ukraine came under suspicion, and the Russian President blamed it for the attack. Mr. Putin claimed the attackers had fled to Ukraine, where they were being helped by their sponsors.
Ukraine already expected this to happen and knew that Russia was not going to sit quietly once it blamed Kyiv. Instead, it will retaliate by attacking back. Things went according to expectations, and on Sunday in Kyiv, we heard the sound of explosions. Although the Islamic State (IS) had already taken responsibility for the attack, Mr. Putin still chose to blame Ukraine for the killings.
The United States informed Russia of the threat received via intelligence communication at the beginning of this month. IS has also released a video of this attack in which they can be heard shouting, “God is Greatest.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Mr. Putin and the ones in Moscow who put the blame for the attack on Ukraine “scum” to link Kyiv to the attack. He called Mr. Putin a “miserable” leader of Russia who wants to associate Kyiv with every immoral and illegal act.
In response to all the blame game played by Russia, Mr Zelensky reversed the game by saying that Moscow had sent “hundreds of thousands of terrorists” to their country since February 2022, when they started the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He claimed that the military sent by Moscow is brutalizing Ukraine, although it came to Ukraine for the purpose of protecting Russia from extremism. He said, “They burn our cities. They torture and rape.”
The Russian army has had a lot of cases against it in Ukraine since 2022, which caused the murder of two innocent civilians. Russian officials claimed that the attackers were caught in Bryansk, an area to the west of Ukraine, but this does not prove their escape to Ukraine. Instead, fleeing to Belarus would be easier for them given that they went to the Bryansk region.
The interrogation videos of these attackers have been shared on social media in which one of the attackers is forced to eat his own ear and the head of another one is being banged, and he is bleeding profusely. How can someone consider such information trustworthy that is obtained by giving someone this harsh treatment?
The Crocus City Hall incident is an indication of how weak Russia is from within, and this is something Putin is worried about as a leader who wants to maintain his reputation as a strong president.
