Lukashenko about the tragedy in "Crocus City Hall" And "window to Ukraine" (video)

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko actually refuted the option with a “window on the Ukrainian border.”

According to him, writes dw, the “curators” of the terrorists “understood that it was impossible to enter Belarus” and that’s the only reason they turned towards Ukraine. Formerly President of Russia claimedthat a window was prepared for terrorists on the Russian-Ukrainian border, the publication recalls. Immediately after the terrorist attack, according to Lukashenko, all security forces were involved and posts were set up on the roads, including those with Russia:

“So they [террористы] There was no way they could enter Belarus. They saw it. Therefore, we turned around and went to the section of the Ukrainian-Russian border.”

Lukashenko, tells BelTA news agency on March 26, promised to call Russian President Vladimir Putin and share with him his suspicions about the “curators.”

The car with the terrorists who carried out the attack at Crocus City Hall was detained, according to the Russian FSB, in the Bryansk region, approximately 140 km from the border with Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin, addressing Russians almost a day after the terrorist attack, which according to official figures killed 139 people and injured 182 more, said that the criminals were moving towards Ukraine, where a “window” had been prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross borders.

Same position share and Russian security forces. Although Bloomberg writes, that some of the Russian president’s inner circle do not agree with his theses about Ukraine’s possible involvement in the March 22 terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov said that the Ukrainian special services facilitated the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, and radical Islamists prepared it. Bortnikov also called for recognizing the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) as a terrorist organization. Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, who is one of Putin's closest advisers, also said that Ukraine was involved in the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. When asked who, in his opinion, organized this crime, Kyiv or the Islamic State, he replied that Ukraine was to blame.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) analyzed statements by the leaders of Belarus and Russia regarding the attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said the attackers at Crocus City Hall initially fled towards Belarus rather than Ukraine, directly undermining the Kremlin's version of Ukrainian involvement, perhaps to avoid questions about why the attackers headed towards Belarus in the first place.

During a visit to the Oshmyany district in northwestern Belarus on March 26, Lukashenko reportedthat the attackers at Crocus City Hall may have planned to flee from the Russian Bryansk region to Belarus, but a heightened security regime was introduced in Belarus, which forced the attackers to change course towards the border between Russia and Ukraine. Lukashenko said the attackers “were unable to penetrate Belarus” and praised the high level of cooperation between Russian and Belarusian intelligence services that led to the arrest of the attackers.

Lukashenko may have, ISW notes, wanted to head off controversy over the attackers' hypothetical links to Belarus by saying Belarusian forces played a major role in their arrest. While Lukashenko's statement undermines the Kremlin's established narrative, it reduces his vulnerability to attempts by the Kremlin to use non-public information about the attackers' initial escape plans to pressure it in the future.

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