Alexander Lukashevich on the barbaric terrorist attack against civilians in Crocus City Hall in the Moscow region, 11 April 2024

STATEMENT BY MR. ALEXANDER LUKASHEVICH,

PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION,

AT THE 1468th (SPECIAL) MEETING OF THE OSCE PERMANENT COUNCIL

11 April 2024

On the barbaric terrorist attack

against civilians in Crocus City Hall

in the Moscow region

Madam Chairperson,

A monstrous act of terrorism was committed on 22 March this year. Its victims were civilians who were visiting the concert venue of Crocus City Hall in the Moscow region.

A group of armed individuals stormed the premises of the complex and deliberately opened fire on the concertgoers using automatic weapons. The severely wounded were finished off with knives. In order to inflict as many casualties as possible, the terrorists set fire to a hall with a capacity of more than 6,000 spectators using pre-prepared flammable agents. People fleeing the inferno were chased down and killed in cold blood.

So far, at least 144 people, including five children, have died as a result of the attack and its aftermath. A further 695 people, including 15 minors, sustained injuries of varying degrees of severity.

The terrorist attack, which was shocking in its brutality, was carefully planned and prepared. The attackers attempted to escape and travelled by car along the M3 Moscow-Kyiv highway. The vehicle was stopped by officers of the Russian law enforcement authorities and intelligence services in the Bryansk region near the village of Kommuna, not far from the border with Ukraine. Four direct participants in the attack were detained in the car itself and in a nearby forest belt.

According to the terrorists’ confessions, they planned to cross the border on the instructions of their co-ordinator and make their way to Kyiv to receive their promised reward. A cash advance had been sent to them even before the terrorist attack.

The majority of the world’s countries demonstrated a natural reaction to what had happened, condemning terrorism and expressing their support and condolences to our country and to the Russian people. We note the OSCE leadership’s public comments on the matter.

It is reasonable to say that a number of OSCE participating States refrained from offering condolences and failed to find the words to condemn acts of terror against Russian citizens. No such words have been heard from representatives of the Kyiv regime either. On the contrary, they made inconceivably absurd comments in order to divert attention from the indisputable facts pointing to a Ukrainian connection. They said all sorts of things, even accusing the Russian authorities of being involved in the terrorist attack.

The units responsible for Ukraine’s information and psychological operations stepped up their activities almost simultaneously. In order to destabilize the Russian population and to sow fear and panic, aggressive propaganda and recruitment campaigns were launched using information and communication technologies, with calls to commit no less brutal crimes for monetary reward. This campaign was aimed primarily at young people and minors.

The plan of the NATO puppets in Kyiv did not work – they did not succeed in causing panic in Russian society. Our multi-ethnic nation, as in other critical moments in its history, displayed a great degree of cohesion, conscientiousness and fortitude.

It is noteworthy that, within hours of the tragic events, without waiting for the interim results of the investigation, officials of the countries sponsoring the Kyiv regime had made comments to the effect that their Ukrainian protégés had allegedly not been involved in organizing the terrorist attack in the Moscow region.

Out of nowhere, a theory was introduced that responsibility for the crime rested with the group known as ISIS, whose attacks in practice have a completely different character and pattern, as evidenced by many years of observation by the intelligence services. However, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the European Union hastily began to declare innocent their puppets in Kyiv, claiming that they were absolutely certain to have information that Ukraine had not been involved in the tragedy at Crocus City Hall. Allow me to highlight the fact that such statements were made almost immediately after the terrorist attack, and, what is more, without reference to any details of the official investigation.

To those who harp on about evidence relating to ISIS, we should like to ask quite simply: how many ISIS terrorists have tried to hide in Ukraine after committing crimes in various countries of the world? Are all ISIS terrorists (usually suicide bombers) in a hurry to go to Kyiv to receive a cash reward? Lastly, why is the West so eager to convince us that there are no ties between radical groups and the Kyiv regime, whose paramilitary formations include Islamist battalions?

The terrorist attack in the Moscow region is far from the first in modern Russian history. Forces seeking to destroy or weaken our fatherland have for years made use of the criminal underworld in the North Caucasus in the hope of triggering domestic political instability in our country. Thanks to the efforts of the whole of Russian society, the threats created there have been effectively neutralized and eliminated.

The facts show that the same forces are now actively using Ukraine as a springboard for terrorist and subversive activity against our people. The fatal role of “expendable material” and cheap tools in the fight against Russian statehood has been foisted upon the Ukrainians themselves, while the NATO puppets in Kyiv have publicly proclaimed the goal of “destroying Russia as a country”.

The involvement of the Kyiv regime’s intelligence services in terrorist activities in Russia and against Russian citizens was revealed by the head of the so-called Security Service of Ukraine, Vasyl Maliuk, in an interview with the Ukrainian television channel ICTV just three days after the tragedy at Crocus City Hall. He shared specific details about the organization of assassination attempts on Russian officials, public figures and journalists. A significant number of these crimes were committed using bombs. At the same time, Mr. Maliuk noted that the Ukrainian Security Service did not intend to officially take responsibility for these “operations”.

Let us recall the barbaric terrorist attacks committed using explosive devices that cost the lives of journalists Darya Dugina and Maxim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky), that led to the serious injury of writer Yevgeny Prilepin (Zakhar Prilepin) and the death of his driver Alexander Shubin, to the death of five people as a result of the blowing up of the Crimean Bridge in October 2022, and to the injury of 42 people in an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg.

In addition, explosive devices and firearms were used to kill the Prosecutor General of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Sergey Gorenko; the deputy head of the Kherson regional administration, Aleksey Kovalyov; the head of the families, youth and sports department of the Kherson regional administration, Dmitry Savluchenko; the head of the administration of the settlement of Veliky Burluk, Yevgeny Yunakov; the head of the administration of the settlement of Mikhailovka in the Zaporozhye region, Ivan Sushko; and the deputy chief of the traffic police in the city of Berdyansk, Alexander Kolesnikov. Dozens of civil administration representatives, activists and law enforcement officers have been killed.

Attempts have been prepared and made to assassinate the head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov; the head of the Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Balitsky; the head of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo; the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Igor Kornet; the first deputy head of the Kherson region, Vitaly Bulyuk; the head of the culture and sports department of the Zaporozhye region, Andrey Boyko; and many other Russian citizens.

Not one (!) of the aforementioned crimes was condemned by Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s foreign handlers and political and financial sponsors.

We should like to remind you that a battalion by the name of “Terror”, which includes many foreign citizens in its ranks, was established in August 2022 under the authority of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Kyiv regime’s Ministry of Defence and has been operating ever since then. The raids on Russian territory carried out by the Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia Legion terrorist organizations go hand in hand with the killing and maiming of civilians, including children. They are supervised by the Kyiv regime’s intelligence services, and the militants themselves wear the uniforms and insignia of Ukrainian formations.

There is information that has been corroborated by substantial evidence concerning the recruitment by the Kyiv regime’s intelligence services of various citizens in third countries, their training in sabotage and subversion under the guidance of Ukrainian and foreign instructors and their subsequent dispatch to Russian regions to commit terrorist acts. One such person is Ukrainian citizen Yevhenii Karpenko (b. 1984), who was trained in Český Krumlov before being “thrown” into the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, where he was arrested. We have already mentioned him in this room.

Madam Chairperson,

Terror against Russian citizens is not only ignored in the West but also encouraged by many officials in the United States, the United Kingdom and other NATO countries. In this regard, the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case on 9 April 2024 concerning violations of Article 205.1, paragraph 4, of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“financing of terrorism”).

Russian law enforcement officers have established that money received through certain commercial organizations has been used in recent years to carry out terrorist attacks in the Russian Federation and abroad from the territory of Ukraine with the aim of physically eliminating prominent political and public figures, as well as causing economic damage. The links between the direct perpetrators of the terrorist acts and their foreign handlers, organizers and sponsors are being worked out through investigative and operational means.

Hard and indisputable facts testify to the obvious role of a number of Western countries in the emergence and strengthening of the potential of the most radical extremist and terrorist forces in those regions where the West seeks to realize its geopolitical interests. Al-Qaeda, ISIS and their like, including Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups, are links in the same chain. All of them have long been exploited by Western elites as tools to fight the official authorities of “undesirable” States.

The West has failed with its political “engineering” in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Just as in those countries, the duplicitous policy of the United States, the United Kingdom and their satellites in using and supporting extremist and terrorist structures in Ukraine risks backfiring on the countries of North America and Europe themselves, generating an uncontrollable wave of violence around the world.

Efforts to provide these structures with political, informational, material and other forms of support, pump them with weapons and ignore their links with international terrorist networks run counter to the commitment declared by Western countries, including in the United Nations and the OSCE, to prevent States from in any way supporting and abetting terrorism and inciting and justifying terrorist activities.

Along the same lines is the desire to whitewash the regime in Kyiv and to attribute responsibility for the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall to ISIS. It is obvious that this is merely an attempt to distract the world community from the problem of the terrorist threat emanating from Ukraine, the victims of which are Russian civilians. Not to mention the fact that the narratives disseminated by certain Western countries are creating unnecessary publicity for the ISIS group itself, which helps to increase its recruitment and propaganda capabilities.

To conclude, we are grateful to all those representatives of OSCE participating States who not only share the Russian people’s pain at the inhumane attacks committed by terrorists in the Moscow region and other regions of Russia but also do not seek to impose any “political filters” on anything related to obvious manifestations of terrorism. Terrorism is a common threat to all. It should not be used as a tool for settling political scores. There is no place for this phenomenon in the civilized world, and we need to fight terrorism together. We are convinced that this is the key to strengthening security for future generations throughout the OSCE area.

Thank you for your attention.