Russia: The reaction is using the tragedy at Crocus City Hall for its own purposes
We publish this unofficial translation from the news site Sluzhit Narodu.
The largest terrorist attack in recent years occurred on March 22nd, 2024 at about 20:00 Moscow time in the city of Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region. Four terrorists opened fire on visitors to the Crocus City Hall shopping center, killing at least 137 people (including three children) and injuring more than 154 people. As a result of further arson and explosions, the concert hall building was destroyed. We deeply sympathize with all those who suffered and lost their loved ones as a result of this merciless act of terror against civilians. We are also against speculation, which the media immediately launched, using the tragedy to their advantage. This applies to both official media and various kinds of reactionary fascist channels and resources.
A branch of ISIS (a terrorist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation) took responsibility for the terrorist attack. All the circumstances of the preparation for the terrorist attack and the persons associated with it are being clarified, but according to the information available at the moment, it is this group that is responsible for the preparation and execution of the act of terror. The authorities received warnings from the intelligence services of Western countries (USA) about a possible terrorist attack by this terrorist group, the goals of which could include large public events.
Despite this, official and unofficial media immediately began to promote the version of Ukraine’s direct involvement in organizing the terrorist attack. This is extremely beneficial for the country’s political elite, because it will allow them to use the fear and hatred that has arisen to promote even stricter laws that restrict any freedoms of citizens, up to the complete elimination of any open opposition in the country. Also, the “Ukrainian trace” can easily be used as a pretext for escalating the war in Ukraine and for attracting and mobilizing new combatants to the front. Various telegram channels close to security forces and military structures in the first hours began to call for retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian cities, although there was still no information about the organizers of the terrorist attack or evidence demonstrating Ukraine’s involvement in the terrorist attack.
The political consequence of this terrorist attack may also be that the hands of various fascist groups on Russian territory will be freed. After the terrorist attack, accusations of all migrants, Muslims, and citizens of the Caucasus of being prone to terrorism and a danger to the “Russian State” began to spread in right-wing telegram channels. Official media are trying to the last to promote the version of the “Ukrainian trace,” often putting forward conspiracy theories about what happened. Here’s a quote from the NTV channel:
“Having called the terrorist attack horrible, the White House representative above of all began to justify the Kiev regime and his own embassy. John Kirby said that he was ready to remove speculation about the connection between the events and Ukraine. And when asked whether the United States knew about the attack in advance, Kirby said that needs to be asked from the State Department.”
“The Kyiv proxies of the United States, as soon as the reports about the first victims of terrorists came, as usual, tried to make a triumph out of the tragedy on the Internet. But very soon this rhetoric was replaced: Ukrainian media began to report that the security agencies began to deny their involvement. And Western media put forward a version that the Islamic State terrorist group banned in Russia is behind everything. All night long, respected publications published fakes and speculation… The headlines were like a carbon copy, until telegram channels began to print stuff, the source of which is difficult to track, that the perpetrators of the terrorist attack could be natives of one of the Russian republics. This is already a well-known handwriting of the Ukrainian special services and their information centers.”
Zyuganov also expressed his speculations about what happened:
“Please note that the action has not yet ended, and the Americans were the first to shed crocodile tears and set everyone off on the wrong trail, that this is supposedly ISIS, but this is not ISIS, and beards can be glued on, and whatever, that is nonsense, this the work of those who are in prison, they are planning these actions, those who are entrenched in Ukraine, those who are trying to form traitors, all sorts of scoundrels, and so on. All this is well known.”
From all this it is clear that the ruling class will use this tragedy for its own purposes in order to further limit the freedoms of citizens and introduce new laws prohibiting any, even the most formal, forms of protest. They want to use the tragedy and pain of people to pit people against each other, to continue the “Special military operation” and impose an increasingly chauvinistic nationalist order in the country. We must always remember that the ruling class uses any tragedy of the people to its advantage in order to further exploit the people. Under the words about cohesion and unity, they talk about the cohesion of “slaves and masters.” This serves only the interests of the oligarchs, but not the working people of our country – the real victims of this terrorist attack, who should receive condolences from the leaders of other countries, and not Putin.
