LOS ANGELES.–Denying any involvement in the March 22 Crocus City Hall in Krasogorsk terrorist attack that killed 133, injuring dozens more, Ukraine’s 46-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky ripped 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin for saying the terrorists were capture by Russian authorities heading the Ukrainian border. Detaining 11 possible suspects for the mass murder, Putin said at least four terrorists were captured trying to flee to the Ukrainian border. Zelensky called Putin a “low life” for suggesting that Ukraine had anything to do with the horrendous massacre for which ISIS-K in Afghanistan took credit. Zelensky blamed Putin for trying whip up anti-Ukrainian sentiment to further the war effort. Whether the attack was actually executed by ISIS-K or not, Putin insisted that at least four of the detained terrorists, reportedly of Tajikistan origin, tried to escape to Ukraine.
Zelensky was out-if-line hurling insults at Putin for reporting facts as he knew it about how and where Russian authorities captured terrorists responsible for the Crocus City Hall attacks. U.S. intel, for what it’s worth, confirmed that ISIS-K [Khorasan] claimed responsibility for the civilian massacre. Calling the attacks “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act,” Putin confirmed that the terrorists were arrested trying to flee to Ukraine where he claims a “widow” had been opened up for their escape, hinting that Ukrainian authorities were somehow linked to the attacks. Russia authorities cited one of the attackers who said he was approached by an Islamic cleric and paid to take part in the massacre. Russian identified the nationality of the terrorists as from Tajikistan, a former Soviet Republic. Tajik authorities denied that any of the terrorists came from Tajikistan.
Putin won his reelection last week giving him six more years in office, making the incident all the more embarrassing, considering he ran on a law-and-order ticket. Putin had dealt with the Feb. 18 death in an Arctic gulag of former Russian dissident 47-year-old Alexi Navalny, a national opposition leader claiming he was poisoned and politically persecuted in Russia. “They are burning our cities—and they are trying to blame Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “They torture and rape our people–and they blame them. They drove hundreds of thousands of their terrorists here to fight us on our Ukraine soil, and they don’t care what happens inside their own country,” Zelensky said, showing zero empathy for the Crocus Theater slaughter, preferring to make a statement about the Ukraine War. Zelensky has refused to go to the peace table with Putin and resolve the Ukraine conflict.
Zelensky knows that Putin has been open to ceasefire and peace talks under the right conditions but Zelensky has continued the U.S.-subsidized war. If Zelensky wants the war to stop, why does he continue to battle the Kremlin, keeping the war going at great expense to Ukraine? When it comes to yesterday’s terrorist massacre outside Moscow, Zelensky should control his vitriol. Crocus Theatre massacre had all the hallmarks of the Nov. 13, 2015 ISIS attack in Paris on the Bataclan Theatre where 138 civilians were slaughtered with automatic weapons. Whether there was any coordination with Ukraine is anyone’s guess. But ISIS has been making itself known more recently, after flying under the radar since the Oct. 27, 2019 death of its founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Zelensky likes to call Russian soldiers “terrorists,” obscuring the clear distinction between war and terrorism.
Zelensky battles the Russian military in Ukraine because he chose to arm Kiev to the teeth with U.S. weapons, provoking Moscow into disarming his Kiev government. When it comes to a terrorist attack, there’s a big difference watching innocent civilians slaughtered at a recreational music concert. When Zelensky calls Russian soliders “terrorists,” he misuses the word to disparage Russia’s attempt to disarm his military from its U.S. weapons. ISIS admitted on its Website that it killed a large number of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk, the location of the Crocus Theatre. ISIS has a long history battling the Russian Federation in Syria, where Russia has inflicted considerable harm to the group. ISIS has every reason to attack Russia based on its battlefield losses in Syria and Afghanistan. ISIS detonated a bomb in 2015 on a Russia airliner killing all 224 people on board.
Strikingly similar to the 2015 ISIS attack in Paris at the Bataclan Theater, the recent ISIS slaughter at the Crocus Theater has all the hallmarks of the battered terror group looking for relevancy. If there were ever a time to settle the Ukraine War, the U.S. and Russia have bigger fish to fry on the world stage to become mortal enemies over a war that has no national security significance to the United States. Zelensky’s out-of-line condemning Putin at a time of great national mourning, showing he follows no protocol but lashes out at his convenience. Putin should work with the U.S. to resolve the Ukraine War and resume the collective global battle against Islamic terrorists that threaten the civilized world. Ukraine has become too much of a distraction to U.S. foreign policy, preventing the U.S. from coordinating its work with Russia to defeat global terror groups like ISIS.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
