Ukraine had 'no involvement' in Moscow attack, White House says
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00:00 Well, Russian authorities arrested 11 people in connection with the attack, including four
00:04 gunmen who Russian media report are from Tajikistan.
00:08 According to Russia's state news agency, the suspects have been brought to the investigation
00:12 committee's headquarters.
00:13 A branch of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility and even released video of
00:18 the assault.
00:19 Still, the Kremlin has not acknowledged those claims.
00:21 And Vladimir Putin said Saturday that the gunmen were caught trying to flee to Ukraine.
00:27 For more on all this, I'm joined by our international affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert.
00:31 Doug, hello.
00:32 Putin seems to be doubling down on linking this attack to Ukraine.
00:37 Yeah, let's now cut out all both sides-ism here, OK?
00:41 Because one side is more credible than the other here.
00:43 There are competing versions of what happened.
00:45 On the one hand, you have the U.S. National Security Council citing intelligence saying
00:48 that Ukraine bears no, has no involvement in this attack.
00:53 This attack is solely the responsibility of the Islamic State group, a branch, they believe,
00:59 of the Islamic State group, a particularly virulent branch.
01:03 Ukraine categorically denying any involvement, saying that this is purely the Russia trying
01:09 to create a narrative, a pretext for escalating its war of aggression against us in Ukraine.
01:15 And you have ISIS itself, its own news agency, saying, hi, it's us.
01:20 We're the ones who did the attack.
01:21 And as you said, releasing videos that more and more have signs that point to the attackers
01:26 wearing sometimes the same clothing as they were during the attack in videos from before
01:30 the attack.
01:31 That's on one side.
01:32 On the other, you have Russia and its state media and its and its pro-government bloggers
01:38 and other influencers going out of their way to try to ignore all of the mounting evidence
01:45 that it is, in fact, the Islamic State group trying to find any other way of pinning the
01:50 blame on Ukraine.
01:51 So, for one, you have Medusa, which is an independent Russian language website, very
01:56 solid, good reporting based abroad, by the way, right now, because they can't operate
02:00 in Russia.
02:01 Basically, they're citing two Russian state media employees saying that the Russian state
02:08 media and pro-government media have been instructed by the Putin administration to try to find
02:14 any possible traces of Ukrainian involvement.
02:17 The marching orders of the state propaganda machine are to try to piece together an alternative
02:23 narrative that would lead to Ukraine's involvement, despite the denials of Ukraine and no evidence
02:28 pointing to Ukrainian involvement.
02:30 You also have and I want to show you this quote, Maria Zakharova.
02:33 She's I call it the notorious spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry.
02:37 She's the same one who denied that Russia had any plans to invade Ukraine on the eve
02:41 of the invasion a little more than two years ago.
02:43 She said, I wish she dismissed all of the US intelligence claims.
02:47 I wish they could have solved the assassination of their own President Kennedy, JFK, so quickly.
02:52 But no, for more than 60 years, they've not been able to find out who killed him after
02:55 all.
02:56 Or maybe that was ISIS, too.
02:57 This cynical, sneering, contemptuous, dismissive sort of, you know, attack on the credibility
03:03 of the US intelligence reports.
03:05 Remember, like I said, the same woman who dismissed on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine
03:11 any plans of an invasion of Ukraine.
03:14 So you see that everything, all stops are being pulled out here to basically in the
03:19 Russian media, Putin administration, to try to ignore what's right plainly before their
03:24 eyes and to try to point the evidence towards towards Ukrainian involvement.
03:28 Yeah, because terrorism experts who follow the Islamic State group, Doug, say that it's
03:32 highly unlikely they would falsely try and claim this.
03:35 Yeah.
03:36 ISIS right now, and this is according to the Institute of War Reporting.
03:41 Basically, they've been very closely following the Russian campaign.
03:44 They follow terror groups as well.
03:46 And they say that it is highly unlikely ISIS would falsely take false credit for a very
03:52 high profile attack of this nature.
03:54 Why?
03:55 It's not in their interest.
03:56 They're right now competing in what in what is seen as a very highly competitive Salafi
04:01 jihadist environment.
04:02 Any groups trying to get attention, trying to get eyeballs on their acts, it would only
04:08 sap their own credibility if they were to falsely take credit for an attack they didn't
04:12 plan.
04:13 They say that this bears the style, the branding and the language, the way that this group
04:18 in on their so-called news agency, the Amok News Agency, claimed the attack.
04:22 It is totally in line with other attacks they have perpetrated in the past, including, by
04:27 the way, if you want to go back to the similarities with the Bataclan, Paris attack, the concert
04:31 hall here in 2015.
04:33 And finally, Doug, is this security failure, I guess you could call it, going to harm Vladimir
04:38 Putin's image?
04:39 Yeah, well, it is at least the perception among those Russians who are able to get access
04:43 to to a lot of information.
04:45 Putin has built his political career and his image as being the man who can ensure the
04:49 stability and security and protect his compatriots.
04:52 He's he's out of his fifth term in office.
04:54 A lot of Russians voted for him, presumably because whatever else his faults may be, he's
04:58 seen as a strong man able to protect them.
05:00 This clearly flies in the face of that theory, which is why he has egg on his face.
05:04 This is potentially humiliating for him.
05:06 He needs to find any other pretext to cover up the fact that his security services and
05:11 he have not gone aggressively enough after one of the real threats in Russia, which is
05:15 the jihadist threat, a new and potent generation of new jihadists, this new strain of the Islamic
05:20 State group that is claiming responsibility for an extremely horrific attack on their
05:25 soil.
05:26 Instead, he is looking for all pretexts to continue the war in Ukraine, which a lot of
05:30 people would say is a created threat, a threat of something that Putin has created a security
05:35 threat to the country, whereas the real threat is being largely overseen or ignored.
05:38 All right, Doug, thank you, as always.