The Guardian is reporting this evening that three men wearing camouflaged outfits administered open gunfire among people at a Concert Hall in Moscow.
There's are reports of an explosion carried at the venue as well. I don't know how heavy the explosion at the moment. But reports suggests it could be a very serious one.
No reports of any injuries so far.
**Threadbans**
Safesurfer
I cannot come to terms with the outpourings of grief / tears that are being shed for this attack on a Moscow auditorium - maybe up to 300 might have been killed/burned alive/buried alive - and the bombing of that building in Mariupol where up to 3000 - mainly women and children - were murdered and it was seen ‘ as par for the course’ . After all there was a WAR going on. The building was clearly marked on the roof as to what it housed. The ONLY DIFFERENCE might be who carried out the atrocities in both cases. - some people are suggestion that the perpetrator in both cases might be the same GROUP!
I had my doubts earlier in the week about whether the 4 captured were the 4 who carried out the attack. I posted about it in this thread. A couple of the things that I pointed out that didn't add up to me were that the attackers were speaking Arabic to each other and that one of the captured men was a 19 year old barber - which seemed an unlikely candidate.
I since learned though that they were not in fact speaking Arabic to each other - they were speaking Tajik. Also the 19 year old didn't actually take part in the slaughter. He instead was the designated camera-man and driver. It was from his POV that the video that ISIS-K released was taken.
Furthermore a NYT analysis piece, using OSINT, shows a clear link between the clothing of the captured men with that of the attackers and of the photograph that ISIS-K released.
Don't get me wrong. I believe that Putin and the FSB are definitely capable of organising a mass murder of their own citizens as a false flag. I just don't believe the facts add up to that as the likely conclusion this time round.
It's far too convoluted for one. The Kremlin are now trying to link Islamic terrorists to Ukraine and it's a massive stretch. It smells instead of the Kremlin trying to make the best of a bad situation. If they were to dream up something that they could pin on Ukraine it would have been something that would have been far easier to link to them, instead of the hoops that they're now trying to jump through.
Putin going missing for 18 hours after it happened is another tell that this wasn't something that had been expected or that he was in control of.
I do agree that the slow reaction time of the security services to the attack looks suspicious but I think that that can simply be put down to rank incompetence and the surprise factor of something happening on a Friday night. They're not a real security force. They're a glorified protection racket. They're designed for brutalising protesters not for reacting to actual terrorists. I remember the Prigozhin uprising happened on a Friday night as well and the reaction time of the Security forces was glacial.
There are plenty of other things that still don't make sense. I don't believe that those 4 agreed to carry out the assault for a pitiful amount of money (less than $10k). I don't understand why they allowed themselves to be captured alive when they had weapons and ammunition available to them. We'll probably never learn the truth to those questions either.
And they've produced evidence of it? Nope...
Scepticism is one thing, downright conspiracy nuts is another.
When this first happened there were idiots saying it was the Ukraine backed by the CIA, despite ISIS already claiming they were responsible.
Then it was a false flag with four poor Patsy's being tortured.
Then it was an FSB black-ops that somehow ISIS are in on.
Now it's back to yeah, let's blame Ukraine because war and all that rubbish.
I wouldn't believe a single word from ISIS, Russia or Ukraine but sometimes it's just a straight up terrorist attack by a group of inbred scumbags.
Hard to know what is what with the whole thing, so many "leads" all heading in different directions. Too many unanswered questions and contradictory "facts" emerging. with the Kremlin factory lies working overtime proving that it was the West /US/UK working through Ukraine who carried out the attack, adding even more confusion. Time will tell I suppose, eventually.
Pity about what happened in Russia, under different management, could have been a fantastic country. The Country has many attractions, like the Balkans, and despite the general opprobrium Russian people now find themselves under, I always found them to be friendly and helpful. Sure, you would find the bad egg there, but I didn't have to leave Ireland to find bad eggs. I'd like to go back, and have several invitations, but not at the present time. Unless of course, I had a "roof".
Good post ,indeed it was always a place I wanted to see ,great history etc ,not going to happen now unfortunately, need a 1917 to happen again.
The Russian media have gone very quiet on the attack, I wonder why ??
What’s there to see?
Grey buildings and statues and a miserable cold wilderness outside of Moscow and Petersburg.
russia can now claim different things at different times depending on what is beneficial to them. It's a bit genius in a horrible way.
You have never been to El-Brus, or Chegem falls, I guess? (To name but 2 places out of thousands.) Sure outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the villages, towns and cities are drab communist era manufacture, concrete everywhere you look, and massive concrete monuments commemorating the Great Patriotic War, and the massive entrances to the collective farms, with acre after acre of unbroken farmland, massive wheat and corn fields, unbroken by hedges etc. I'd have no hesitation going back, if it were possible at some stage.
I think it's just a sign of the times we live in isn't it. Everyone thinks/or wants to think they know something and will use any wild conspiracy sh it to back up that view. Sometimes even if it's staring you in the face the refusal to believe it will continue despite all evidence to the contrary.
If 9/11 happened tomorrow again you'd have 100 times more conspiracy lunatics crawling out of the woodwork with their "inside scoop" on events.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russian-misinformation-seeks-to-confound-not-convince/
Creating misinformation designed to fuel the creation of multiple thories is how Russia operates. It's aimed at muddying the waters so people are rendered into a state where they believe nothing. So what you call 'conspiracy theory' thinking is simply a necessary part of the process required to reach a likely conclusion or the truth, unless you want to be a sucker for the tactic.
Occam's razor helps. If an event fits a known and historically proven pattern, then it is very reasonable, in the absence of certainty, to favour consideration of the causation of an event with a bias towards known or likely causations in the past.
Or to put it another way, one of the possible suspects has considerably more form than the others.
Russia has a marvellous amount of great historic monuments. The palaces of the tsars and the nobility are the equal of any in Europe-they put the dwellings of, say,British and Spanish royalty in the ha'penny place-and their old monasteries, churches and fortresses, often made of wood, have a unique character of their own. When they joined the European architectural mainstream their versions of Baroque and Neoclassical were very sophisticated.
Yes, it has all of these, most of which would have dated from pre-communist times. And anyone who has been there will agree. Even the Moscow metro is an artistic exhibition in itself.
You wouldn't happen to know where I could get some novichok, by any chance?
Simplicus runs through a list of items
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/west-desperately-deflects-as-ukraines
He starts with dugina
Later admitted Ukraine was responsible.
Given the US involvement in covert operations, torture, etc. and denials by Ukraine I think it's not completely conspiratorial to consider their involvement.
Also, Isis-k, not Isis.
Anything reputable you could have linked to? Lol.
And another explanation emerges…
The guy quoted is another in the list of Russian propagandists like the Duran trying to appeal to the midwits(halfwits look to people like Hinckle and Carlson) with convoluted word salads and theories that sound plausible, if one believes in fairytales and one really wants to believe.
Only believed by some Russians and western conspiracy nuts, who it's really aimed at, looking for the "Joos" and "WEF". They can't keep a narrative straight for more than a fortnight, three weeks tops and on to the next wild narrative, memory holing old narratives as they go. Though yer man tries the old Russian saw of "foreign general dies suddenly, or did he die in Ukraine?". That one has a long history, but usually it's "10, 20, 50 generals die in Ukrainian bunker". Russia must be getting sloppy. We haven't heard of biolabs for a while, or dirty bombs, or gas attacks, or [insert daftness here]. I miss the classics. Surely they're worth another spin?
But that's part and parcel of the Russian spin, and it is effective, at least for those deep in sunk cost allegiances and with very short memories, or MAGA morons.
What yer man avoids like the plague in his "theories" is Russian incompetence. If it's all true and unicorns exist and it was the CIA/MI5/WEF/Mossad/Ukraine behind this terrorist attack; why did Russian authorities not respond sooner? Why did they call the pretty specific US warnings "blackmail" and completely ignore it? Why did they not deploy extra security at concerts and other gatherings just in case? How did a bunch of scumbags tool up with weapons, scope out the venue and attack in one of the most monitored capitals on Earth? Why did it take over an hour to deploy security forces to the concert hall? Why did it take the same length of time before even emergency services like ambulances and the fire brigade show up? Why did it take so long for putin to address his nation? Leaders all over the world from all backgrounds condemned this attack while putin remained silent(as did the usual crew on the socials), no doubt busy trying to cook up the script to be passed on by their loyal spin doctors. Not unlike the Wagner coup that never was. Never mind, all is forgiven, until their leader was apparently playing with grenades on his private plane… Take the amnesia pill please.
Ahh jaysus…. 🤣
Often a true word spoken in jest… LOL😂
Reminds me of the hillarious 'this is my land' cartoon.
Russia officially says Ukraine was involved in the Moscow attack
You keep posting the Russian line but never voice your opinion, so what do you think of their claims? Russia have not produced any evidence that Ukraine had anything to do with this.
How can i have an opinion when no one knows what the evidence is. I did think it was a bit weird when that guy went on TV the other day and said they assasinated people and blew them up like.
Obviously these things go on, but not often they go on telly and tell everyone what they did. Also difficult to see them going the legal route without any proof, so they must present something in due course.
Care to discuss what you think this means? Do you believe russia?
I think it;s been proven time and time again, you don't need evidence - you just need good propaganda and the ability to ban opposing voices.
We have seen over the years how Russian courts often have only a passing connection with proof when it comes to political trials. Their connection with due process was writ large in what was left of the accused in the dock.
Russia's ministry of information doesn't even have that. Take the famous biolabs. Russia's occupied a large chunk of Ukraine for over two years and yet haven't shown a scrap of evidence for these WMD's, sorry Biolabs. Funny that.
Absolutely. It's tragic. I don't know whether we here in the west could have helped prevent that return to authoritarianism, but in any case we are paying the price of it - and this may be only the beginning. Such opportunities wasted.
I'm still in (occasional) contact with a couple in Moscow, educated and westernised, keen to have contacts with the rest of Europe, yet the last time I spoke to the woman, shortly after the invasion, I found that she was very guarded even on Telegram about expressing any opinion other than general sadness about the conflict and the resulting bad relationship with the west. Nothing at all about whose "fault" it was, and a certain eagerness to assure me that the economy wasn't suffering from the boycott which had been declared that made me wonder a bit.
I don't know if it was because she was being very careful out of fear or prudence, or whether the tradition of a "patriotism" which is not far from xenophobia is still there just under the surface even among the educated middle class.
I haven't contacted her since, and neither has she contacted me, so I can't tell if her thinking has changed since then.
