Moscow terror attack planned and paid for by Kiev – MEP

The terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall venue last week, which claimed the lives of more than 140 people, was planned and paid for by Ukraine, Marcel de Graaff, a member of the European Parliament from the Dutch right-wing Forum for Democracy (FvD) party, has claimed.

According to the politician, it is due to Kiev’s involvement that the “legend of propaganda paid for by Russia” has emerged again.

“Because we must continue to hate them, because our children will soon have to die on the battlefield to protect the financial interests of the Western elite,” de Graaff wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday.

The statement comes as the Russian Investigative Committee reported on Thursday, citing preliminary findings, that the suspects in last week’s Moscow terrorist attack were linked to Ukrainian nationalists. The perpetrators received “significant sums of money” from Ukraine, the law enforcement agency said.

Investigators have obtained “substantiated evidence” that the suspected assailants received funding from Ukraine in the form of cryptocurrency, which was then used to prepare the terrorist attack, the statement read.

Earlier, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, told reporters that the US, UK, and Ukraine may have been behind the attack. The Ukrainians may have been preparing a “window” for them to cross back over the border, the official said. “On the other side, they were to be welcomed as heroes,” he added.

The four suspected perpetrators had previously been identified as radical Islamists, recruited through an online chat apparently operated by the Afghanistan-based offshoot of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). However, the investigators said at the time that, despite the group’s claim of responsibility for the terrorist act, another party, such as a Ukrainian intelligence agency, may have been involved in the plot.

Last Friday, a group of men armed with assault rifles stormed the Crocus City Hall music venue in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, just before a concert by the rock band Picnic. The attack and a subsequent blaze started by the perpetrators claimed the lives of 144 people and injured over 200 others.

The assailants were apprehended hours after the attack in Russia’s Bryansk Region, which borders Ukraine.