Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin and self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko have met and discussed the situation on the evening of March 22 at the Crocus City concert hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region.
This was reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
According to analysts, Lukashenko said that the attackers on Crocus City Hall initially fled toward Belarus, not Ukraine, adding that this directly undermines the Kremlin's narrative of Ukraine's involvement, possibly to head off questions about why the attackers headed toward Belarus in the first place. However, he also added that the attackers "couldn't enter Belarus."
ISW experts believe that the self-proclaimed president has "very little evident incentive to lie about the facts of the attack in this way." Indeed, even the suggestion that the attackers might have sought refuge in Belarus could have damaging political consequences for Lukashenko and his regime: "...it would raise questions about why they thought they would be safer in Belarus and who they thought might receive them there."
ISW notes that this is probably why Lukashenko has desired to preempt talk of hypothetical links between the attackers and Belarus, which is why he indicated that Belarusian forces played an important role in the arrests of the suspects.
However, this statement also "undermines the existing Kremlin narrative." However, ISW adds that despite attempts by Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials to maintain a consistent rhetorical line on the Crocus City Hall attack, situations like this indicate that Kremlin officials have not yet fully determined "how to reconcile its information operations with the reality of its intelligence and law enforcement failure."
ISW emphasizes that Putin and the Russian leadership are not fully focused on one "false narrative that Ukraine somehow conducted the March 22 attack on the Crocus concert venue for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility".
Earlier we reported that FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov stated that the US, the UK and Ukraine are allegedly behind the terrorist attack in "Crocus City Hall".