The New York Times (NYT) cited unnamed sources on Thursday to report that “The adversarial relationship between Washington and Moscow prevented U.S. officials from sharing any information about the (Crocus terrorist attack) plot beyond what was necessary, out of fear Russian authorities might learn their intelligence sources or methods.” This vindicates President Putin, who the West hitherto claimed had downplayed terrorist threats in the run-up to one of the worst attacks in Russian history.
Without actionable intelligence and informed only of the US’ vague warning that large gatherings like concerts could soon be targeted, his security services were unable to stop the plotters, thus meaning that Washington is partially responsible for what happened by withholding specific information about it. Just as scandalously, this bombshell also prompted speculation about the exact sources and methods that America employed to first catch wind of this attack.
While it’s possible that the US learned about this from spying on the radical Telegram channel whose curators reportedly recruited the culprits, such as if the CIA had a mole inside that preacher’s team, the case can compellingly be made that this might have actually been brought to its attention by spying on Kiev. Last spring’s Pentagon leaks confirmed that the US has been spying on Zelensky, which Ukrainian officials told CNN was “unsurprising” but still left them “deeply frustrated”.
Those documents also confirmed that the US was spying on Ukraine’s military-intelligence service GUR as well, from whom they learned about a plot to attack the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the first anniversary of the special operation and then ordered them to stand down to avoid provoking Moscow. Seeing as how the Washington Post (WaPo) reported half a year later that the CIA rebuilt the GUR from the ground-up after 2014, it’s obvious that they embedded moles within that institution from the get-go.
They don’t always learn about terrorist plots ahead of time since their infiltration of the GUR and other Ukrainian government agencies isn’t total, but they’re still usually able to conclude sometime afterwards that Kiev was responsible whenever a serious attack happens in Russia. Such was the case last May when the NYT reported that Kiev was responsible for the Kremlin drone attack, in which piece they also reminded their reader that it was behind other attacks up until that point too.
These include the assassinations of Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, cross-border terrorist raids into Russia’s Belgorod Region, and the Nord Stream II bombing. About that last-mentioned one, the claim of Ukrainian complicity might very well be a preplanned red herring for deflecting from American involvement after Seymour Hersh served as the conduit for dissident members of the Intelligence Community (IC) to inform the public that their country was the one that ordered that attack.
Nevertheless, what’s important to note in this larger narrative context is that the Wall Street Journal claimed last summer that the US learned about Ukraine’s plans to blow up that pipeline from Dutch sources and then told Kiev to not to go through with it. Irrespective of whether Ukraine really was involved and despite however the US allegedly obtained the information, not to mention whether that even happened, the point is that IC wanted Americans to know that it told Ukraine to stand down.
WaPo then reported last November that a former senior official from GUR coordinated the Nord Stream II bombing with more senior officials, who supposedly took orders from former Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, and all of this purportedly went on behind Zelensky’s back. It’s unimportant whether any of that is true since the significance lies in the fact that IC-connected WaPo introduced this narrative into the global discourse of ostensibly rogue members of the Ukrainian IC plotting such major attacks.
To recap everything that’s been shared thus far by the Mainstream Media: the US spies on Zelensky, the GUR, and other Ukrainian institutions; they’ve learned via these means that Kiev was responsible for prior terrorist attacks; sometimes they catch wind of them ahead of time and order their proxies to stand down; which succeeded in February 2023 when Ukraine then decided not to attack Novorossiysk; but failed in summer 2022 after putatively rogue members of the Ukrainian IC then bombed Nord Stream II.
With this in mind, suspicions that the US withheld possibly actionable intelligence about the then-impending Crocus terrorist attack in order to not reveal their Ukrainian sources and methods make a lot more sense. The FSB and Security Council chiefs already suspected Ukrainian involvement, President Putin informed the nation that the terrorists’ contacts in that country had prepared a “window” for them to cross the border, and investigators just discovered evidence that Kiev paid them via cryptocurrency.
The Deputy Chairman of Turkiye’s ruling party also recently said that “It is obvious that it is impossible to carry out such a professional action without the support of intelligence of any state. Such events always have sponsors, lobbies that want the (Ukrainian) war to continue.” Seeing as how his country is a NATO member, arms Ukraine, votes against Russia at the UN, and doesn’t recognize Crimea’s reunification, there are no reasons to suspect that he has ulterior motives so his words should be taken seriously.
In the face of these allegations, the US feverishly doubled down on its claim that Ukraine wasn’t responsible, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described as “suspiciously” “obsessive”. His spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had earlier described Bloomberg’s report that Kremlin insiders doubt Ukraine’s involvement, which was arguably an IC-planted narrative deflection, as “the mother of all fakes.” The trend is that the US is desperately trying to convince everyone that Kiev wasn’t responsible.
All of this suggests that the US knows that Ukraine was involved but fears what Russia might do once the evidence becomes indisputable. For instance, this could then be shared with the world for justifying the legal transformation of Russia’s special operation into an all-out war, which could precede another offensive. A breakthrough might eventually occur and the government could collapse soon thereafter exactly as the Ukrainian Intelligence Committee warned in late February might happen by this summer.
This insight adds context to the NYT’s bombshell since it might very well have been that the CIA learned about the Crocus plot by spying on its GUR protégés, which this analysis here explains how they could have orchestrated everything, but then told them to call it off. Just like the GUR reportedly delayed the Nord Stream II bombing, so too does it seem in hindsight like it delayed this bloodbath, only to later carry out both irrespective of whether they were formally approved or done by rogue IC members.
The aforesaid version of events accounts for why the US only passed along vague information to Russia since it assumed that the GUR wouldn’t go through with the Crocus plot, but Washington still wanted to discredit its rival’s government and security services, ergo its embassy’s provocative warning at the time. After the terrorist attack happened and evidence began piling up of Ukraine’s involvement, the US swiftly ran interference for its proxies because it fears the consequences of Russia’s possible military reaction.
It’s unclear what those members of the US IC that spoke to the NYT were thinking when they told that outlet to report that their services withheld details of the then-impending Crocus terrorist attack from Russia in order to not betray their sources and methods, but the larger narrative context within which this pivotal detail entered the global discourse casts more aspersions on Ukraine. It seems increasingly obvious that Kiev was involved, and it’s likely only a matter of time before a smoking gun is found.
