EU warns Russia over Moscow terror attacks
Europe has warned Russia not to use the weekend’s terror attacks in Moscow as a pretext to escalate its war in Ukraine and crackdown on internal dissent.
The demands on Monday (25 March), by the EU’s foreign policy chief spokesperson Peter Stano, came as the Kremlin refuses to blame the Islamic State for the Crocus City concert hall attacks that killed 137 people over the weekend.
"There are no indications — no proof whatsoever that Ukraine was in any way linked to these attacks," Stano told reporters in Brussels.
"So far, none of the major terrorist attacks in Russia have been clarified, investigated properly. So this leaves a lot of questions open also about the attitudes of the authorities. And I leave it here," he added.
Paris has since increased its terror alert to its highest level amid fears that the same Afghan Islamic State branch behind the Moscow slaughter will launch attacks on French soil.
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin had claimed, without citing evidence, that Ukraine had aided the terrorists and offered them a means to escape.
This comes despite the Islamic State taking credit for the assault, posting a video of the attack from one of the killers, and declaring it had struck "a strong blow".
Russian propagandists are now ratcheting up the spin against Ukraine, despite ample warning from the United States earlier this month of an impending terror attack in Moscow.
That warning was dismissed by Putin.
For its part, Ukraine has denied any involvement as its capital Kyiv reels from Russian ballistic missile strikes.
"Every official statement from the Kremlin and its propagandists will be a lie, with a few half-truths tossed in," said Garry Kasparov, Russian former world chess champion, in an op-ed on Sunday for the Wall Street Journal.