Budanov explains why Russia allowed terrorist attack in Moscow region - intelligence agency

28.03.2024, 11:02 en.interfax.com.ua

Russia knew in advance about the preparation of a terrorist operation in the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, but allowed it due to either a "fight of towers" or an underestimation of the scale of what could happen, head of the Main Intelligence Agency at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov said.

"At a minimum, on February 15, 2024, Russia knew about the preparations. I'll tell you more, this information went through the group's intelligence department in Syria. From there it went to Moscow. And let them not tell tales that in a strange way it all materialized out of nowhere," Kyrylo Budanov said during the third International Forum on Strategic Communications.

According to him, Russia knew where the combat groups would come from, through which two countries they moved to the territory of the aggressor state.

"Why they allowed this to happen - there are several options. The first is, as is their custom, a fight between the 'towers' in order to remove several officials now. The other option is that they actually underestimated the scale of what would happen. They thought that it would be more local, and they wanted to blame it all over Ukraine," the head of the Main Intelligence Agency said.

According to him, the Kremlin has already changed the version of what happened in the shopping center near Moscow three times, trying to somehow link the so-called "Ukrainian trace" to the terrorist attack.

"There were explanations from Patrushev and Bortnikov, who accused me personally and that Ukraine did all this. This is nonsense. By the way, if we touched on this painful issue, even though this is the enemy, I do not approve in principle of terrorist acts against civilians," the head of intelligence said.

Budanov added that Russia itself sowed chaos and confidently believed that it could control it.

"There is such a stable expression, even a truth. It always works among special services: everyone is trying to create controlled chaos. Absolutely all more or less serious organizations tried to do this at different times. And the axiom is that none of them was able to make it controlled. The same thing happened here," the head of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry summed up.