Shooting in mall. Russia knew about preparation for terrorist attack for over a month – Budanov

Russia knew in advance about the preparation of the terrorist attack that took place in Moscow's Crocus City Hall on March 22, the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR), Kyrylo Budanov, said at the Third International Forum on Strategic Communications.

Russia knew about the planning of the terrorist attack at least since February 15, this information came through the intelligence directorate of the group in Syria. Budanov said Russia also knew where the combat groups would come from and through which countries they were moving.

"Why they allowed this to happen – there are several options. First, removing several high-ranking officials is their usual 'struggle of the towers'. The second option is that they underestimated the scale of what would happen. They thought it would be more local, and they wanted to blame Ukraine for everything," said the head of the HUR.

Budanov stated that in the Kremlin they have already changed the versions of what happened in the Moscow concert hall three times, trying to somehow tie the terrorist attack to the so-called "Ukrainian trace."

"There were statements by the secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev and the director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, who accused me personally and said that Ukraine did everything. This is nonsense. By the way, if we touched on this painful subject, even if it is the enemy, I do not approve in principle of terrorist acts against civilians," said Budanov.

In his opinion, Russia itself sowed chaos and arrogantly believed that it could control it.

"There is such a stable expression, even a truth. It always functions in the environment of special services: everyone tries to create controlled chaos. Absolutely all more or less serious organizations have tried to do this at different times. And the axiom is that none of them could make it controlled. The same thing happened here," said the head of the HUR.

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