Assailants appear to be from Tajikistan, a country on the northern border of Afghanistan.

https://bsky.app/profile/maks23.bsky.social/post/3kodutgy332...

Pretty interesting. Russia has a virtual 'open borders policy' with the central asian states recently.

Russia is already trying to pin this on Ukraine, and doing a very sloppy job at it.

They claim that this van with a Ukrainian license plate was found near the attack. However, they blur out the country part of the plate and the remainder indicates Belarus.

https://bsky.app/profile/thomashansen.bsky.social/post/3kocs...

Terrorists were caught trying to escape to the Ukraine, very close to the border. They were obviously linked to some people on the Ukrainian territory. Or at least they thought so. According to the public information, they got instructions from anonymous telegram account, so it could really be anyone.

There is zero evidence pointing to Ukraine, and ISIS has released video from the attackers.

But let's play along with the lunatic running Russia for a moment:

For them to cross into Ukraine, they would have required the cooperation of the Russian military on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border. So.. really?

This appears to be such a massive failure on Putin's part.

Warned of the attack, blinded by hate and paranoia, he publicly dismisses the warning as an effort to destabilize Russia.

Also, it took an hour for an armed response, and meanwhile:

> An intriguing detail - Crocus City Hall in Moscow, the site of a mass shooting on March 22nd, is situated roughly 5-8 minutes away from a major base belonging to the Main Directorate of the Federal National Guard Troops Service of the Russian Federation for the city of Moscow.

https://bsky.app/profile/tatarigami.bsky.social/post/3kodqdz...

On Street View, that directorate looks like a normal office building, albeit a huge one, would they necessarily have people with military training stationed there?

That's a fair point, I had not checked it out myself prior to your comment.

I thought the same, whatever high he was on after the phony election win is over.

Or it was an orchestrated false flag, and it wouldn't be the first time.

It's less likely now that ISIS has claimed responsibilities of course, but things aren't always what they seem.

False flag or not, Putin will try to pin this all on Ukraine to drive military recruiting. So even if it is a failure, it may work to his advantage.

ISIS doing it is the only thing that makes sense.

It's not a Russian false flag because it makes Putin look incompetent.

It's not a Ukrainian op because the US wouldn't give advanced warning, instead they'd tell Ukraine to cut it out.

What we are seeing is a run of the mill ISIS attack followed by misdirection by Putin to shift blame from himself.

My first thought on a false flag was "three days after the election?" Wouldn't you want it before?"

On reflection, no, you wouldn't. The point of that kind of false flag is to make whoever is in power look bad - weak, and in need of a stronger replacement. You don't do that if you are the one in power. Three days after an election gives the maximum time for people to forget about it before the next election.

Then what would be the point? To pin it on Ukraine, to stoke public support for the war.

But I don't buy that, for three reasons. One, from what I gather, they're doing a really clumsy job of pinning it on Ukraine. The data doesn't really support that conclusion. Two, they took too long to blame Ukraine for it. For a real false flag, I would expect the data to point quickly and decisively to the intended fake perpetrator, and only later would niggling questions come out. Third, ISIS is claiming responsibility. (Though groups wanting attention sometimes do claim operations that aren't theirs. Does ISIS do that?)

So overall, I think it's just Putin trying to make lemonade out of lemons, rather than a real false flag. But I'm just a rando posting on the internet, and I don't actually know anything...

Cui prodest points to Ukraine, and to US.

You can argue whether it was them, but you cannot, as most do here, a priori exclude this variant as if it was something absurd: it is not.

Ukrainian Natsiks are hiding behind ISIS! This is ridiculous! Now they are in Russia, then all over the world! Greet them!!!

Tomorrow they will shoot up the floor of the stadium at the Barcelona Real match. What to do?