Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko undermined his key ally Vladimir Putin when he said that the men who allegedly opened fire on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Moscow last week, killing at least 139 people, initially attempted to flee to Belarus, not Ukraine—contradicting the Kremlin line.
Going against Moscow's claims, Lukashenko said on Tuesday that suspected assailants from the March 22 concert hall attack originally tried to cross into Belarus—which borders Ukraine and Russia—after they fled the scene. Newsweek emailed the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministries for comment on Wednesday.
The Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the attack—the deadliest in Moscow for more than a decade—but Russian officials have said Ukraine was behind the mass shooting, without offering concrete evidence. Kyiv has denied involvement.
"We placed our units on high alert to prepare for a combat situation," Lukashenko told a press conference on Tuesday, according to the state-run news agency Belarusian Telegraph Agency or BelTA. "As a result, they were unable to enter Belarus by any means. Recognizing this, they diverted their course and headed toward the Ukrainian-Russian border."
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said in its latest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine on Tuesday that Lukashenko's suggestion that the attackers were heading towards Belarus before Belarusian and Russian special services forced them to change direction "flatly contradicts Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims regarding the attackers' planned escape."
"Putin addressed the Russian Federation on March 23 following the March 22 Crocus City Hall terror attack and claimed that the attackers had 'contacts' who had prepared a 'window' for their exfiltration across the border into Ukraine, a claim for which there is no evidence that has become central to the Kremlin's baseless accusations that Ukraine was involved in or responsible for the attack," the think tank said.
Lukashenko is a close ally of Putin. Belarus, a former Soviet Union republic, has maintained strong relations with Russia since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
While Belarus hasn't directly joined the Ukraine conflict, Russian troops have been allowed to perform exercises on Belarusian territory since before the beginning of the war. The country was used by Russia to launch its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The ISW said Putin and other top Kremlin officials appear to be struggling to maintain a consistent rhetorical line about the concert hall attack. It added this indicates that the Kremlin "has not fully figured out how to reconcile its information operations with the reality of its intelligence and law enforcement failure."
"Other senior Russian officials have doubled down on the Kremlin's baseless narrative accusing Ukraine of conducting the attack, however, while conceding that Russian authorities currently lack critical information about the attack, seemingly contradicting their own statements and statements made by other Kremlin officials," the think tank said.
Russian authorities have so far detained 11 people in connection to the attack.
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About the writer
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
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