‘We know what grief and pain feel like’: Donetsk residents offer solidarity with Moscow after Crocus City Hall terrorist attack

“In our city, we know what this grief and pain is, but Moscow is a peaceful city. People are not prepared for this at all,” a family with children told Sputnik correspondent Russell Bentley(@TXDPR).

“We [in Donetsk] are used to this kind of news, but it is still terrible. When we think about a normal life, a quiet, peaceful life that we have unfortunately already forgotten, we want it to be better for everyone,” they said.

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On March 24 1999, 25 years ago, NATO began bombing Yugoslavia and its capital Belgrade under the pretext of "protecting" Kosovars.

Ahead of the bombing in February 1999, Paris hosted talks between Yugoslavian government and Kosovo Albanians, mediated by the US, Russia and the European Union. The talks failed because of unacceptable conditions for Belgrade like deployment of a NATO corps in Kosovo. Pressured by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Kosovo delegation signed the draft agreement.

On March 23, 1999, US envoy Richard Holbrooke came to Belgrade in order to talk to Yugoslavia's leader Slobodan Milosevic into accepting the February conditions. In the evening, a state of military threat was declared. The next day NATO secretary general green-lit the start of bombing.

The so-called “humanitarian intervention” resulted in large-scale catastrophe with thousands of people killed and the eventual collapse of Yugoslavia as a sovereign state.

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Flags are lowered to half-staff at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Secretariat in Beijing as a sign of mourning for the victims of the terrorist attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall.

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French President Emmanuel Macron seeks to “please” the US leadership, as well as to provoke NATO allies, by announcing the possible sending of troops to Ukraine. His actions are not related to plans to create “strategic autonomy” for Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Andrei Kondrashov’s documentary “Belgrade" dedicated to the 25th anniversary of NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.

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Ukraine was likely ‘at least an accomplice’ in the Moscow terrorist attack - analyst

The Ukrainian leadership in Kiev apparently had prior knowledge of the March 22 terrorist attack in Moscow, political and military analyst Sergei Poletaev tells Sputnik.

He pointed out that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officially announced that the terrorists “had contacts on the Ukrainian side,” and suggested that the attack could have been masterminded either by some sort of Islamist terrorist groups with ties to Ukraine or by Ukraine directly.

“In any case, it seems that those in Kiev knew about the terrorist attack, so that makes them accomplices at the very least,” Poletaev says.

Commenting on the attempts by both Washington and Kiev to hastily deny Ukraine’s trace in this terrorist attack, Poletaev suggests that the West is going to insist that ISIS* alone was responsible.

Thus, he postulates, there will be two narratives – the Russian and the Western – and it all comes down to whose side the “global majority” is going to take.

“It is in our best interests to collate a convincing body of evidence for our case. It would greatly help us with diplomacy,” Poletaev remarks. “We’re talking about the ‘third countries,’ of course, as the West will most likely dismiss any talk of Ukraine’s involvement.”

*ISIS (ISIL/Islamic State/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries

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Serbs will not forgive NATO for bombing Yugoslavia because they killed Serbian children and feel no remorse, former head of the Serbian Security and Information Agency Alexander Vulin told Sputnik.

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There are 92 patients in Moscow's hospitals after the terrorist attack, seven of whom are in an extremely serious condition, 29 in a serious condition, including two children, while 27 have been discharged, the deputy mayor of Moscow has said.

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❗️Last night, the Russian Aerospace Forces hit facilities in the electric power and gas production industries, as well as assembly and testing sites for unmanned boats in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense has reported.

All goals of the strike were achieved, the work of Ukrainian enterprises for the manufacture and repair of weapons was disorganized, and foreign-made equipment was destroyed.

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‘Beyond understanding’: Donetsk woman gives a powerful speech about Crocus City Hall terrorist attack

“Why are they killing civilians who have nothing to do with this conflict? Because somebody needs this conflict, somebody is fueling it. It is beyond comprehension, it is below any form of human dignity,” a Donetsk woman told Sputnik’s correspondent Russell Bentley (@TXDPR).

The woman explained that the attack was especially shocking for her because her husband and son are combat veterans who fought to liberate the Donbass, including in Mariupol.

“If we won’t do it, then who will? That's the ideology of the Russian people: Not to sit somewhere, but to defend our territory, our families. That’s what real men do.”

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❗️Ukrainian troops lost up to 300 troops in the Donetsk area over the last day.

🇷🇺🪖 Other statements from the Russian Defense Ministry’s briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️In the Kharkov region, the Russian Army destroyed up to 40 soldiers, as well as MLRS Vampire and Mars systems;

▪️In the South Donetsk area, Ukrainian losses amounted to 140 soldiers;

▪️Near Avdeyevka, Ukrainian losses amounted to 360 military personnel, two tanks, and five armored vehicles;

▪️In the Kupyansk area, Ukrainian losses amounted to 140 soldiers and a M777 artillery system;

▪️Russian air defenses shot down 172 Ukrainian drones, 14 cruise missiles and 33 other missiles.

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NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia: A ‘culmination of negligence' that opened Pandora’s box - expert

Twenty-five years ago, NATO kicked off its 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. According to various sources, up to 2,500 people were killed and over 6,000 more injured during the bombing, which was not approved by the UN.

In an interview with Sputnik, Dr. Stevan Gajic, a Balkans expert and research associate at the Belgrade-based Institute of European Studies, says that the beginning of NATO’s “illegal attack” against Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, was “a precedent that opened Pandora's box.”

“It was a culmination of negligence of the international law that started since the end of the Cold War. Absolutely, [the] 1999 [NATO campaign] was a precedent. We can even say that the international law was in a way abolished at that moment and, of course, after that chaos was introduced into the system of international relations,” Gacic points out.

The expert also didn’t rule out launching a “real investigation against NATO crimes” in Yugoslavia, which he says can only happen after the serious geopolitical changes following the collapse of NATO in one way or the other. He was echoed by Dr. Srdjan Sljukic, a professor of sociology at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, who tells Sputnik that “NATO aggression against Yugoslavia” reflected “two sorts of crimes,” such as “breaking the international law” and “bombing civilian objects and killing many civilians.”

Sljukic also warns that “as long as the key Western countries are ruled by the current liberal elites, NATO countries will not be put on fair trial because of their crimes in Yugoslavia and all over the world.”

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The recruitment of assassins for the terrorist attack in Moscow's Crocus City Hall was organized through the Embassy of Ukraine in Tajikistan, according to a military expert, ex-special services officer, retired Colonel Bakhtiyer Rakhmonov.

A few weeks before the terrorist attack, information appeared on the website of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission about inviting foreigners to join the so-called "International Legion," he noted. The message was later removed.

"The ambassador of the Ukrainian embassy in Dushanbe is the ex-head of the foreign intelligence service, and the consulate itself was looking for perpetrators a few weeks before the terrorist attack, publishing an order to hire assassins openly on the page of the Embassy of Ukraine in Tajikistan," he said, adding that it provided all the contacts - a potential terrorist could only write or call.

Rakhmonov constantly monitors such messages on the website of the Ukrainian embassy. Since 2014, Ukrainian diplomats have posted similar announcements several times, only to have them removed.

"The work on recruiting foreigners was led by Ambassador Extraordinary of Ukraine Valery Evdokimov, former head of the foreign intelligence service under Zelensky," the expert said.

Evdokimov was the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine from September 2019 to June 2020.

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'U-Turn over Atlantic': How Russian PM Primakov showed Moscow won't be US satellite

On March 24, 1999, Yevgeny Primakov’s plane was en route to the US where the then-Russian prime minister was due to discuss an IMF loan to the tune of $5 billion for his country. But after then-US Vice President Al Gore told Primakov about NATO starting to bomb Yugoslavia, he decided to turn his plane around and go back to Moscow.

Despite Gore’s desperate attempts to persuade Primakov to backtrack on his decision and come to Washington, the Russian prime minister was undeterred.

"If I had accepted Gore's terms, I would have been a real traitor," Primakov later said.

Dr. Samuel Hoff, a professor of history and political science at Delaware State University, points to the significant expansion of NATO after the March 1999 incident.

“It is a fact that in 1999, NATO had 16 countries. And as we sit here in 2024, there are 32 members,” Hoff notes in an interview with Sputnik.

Peter Kuznick, a professor of history at the American University, tells Sputnik that Primakov’s U-turn over the Atlantic added significantly to tarnishing the already “strained” US-Russian relations at the time.

Referring to current “terrible” ties between Moscow and Washington, “the lack of trust” and a bilateral “polarization,” the professor says that one is “beginning to see signs of that certainly with Primakov's mission in 1999.”

“So it certainly can be seen as an important turning point in terms of the deterioration of potential friendship between the US and Russia and creating a much more positive kind of multipolar world,” he concludes.

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Ukrainian's profiteering from pain

Kiev's “Ofenziva" bar has added a “Crocus City” set meal to it's menu. On the bar's website, the meal was illustrated with a photo of the burning building in Moscow region where nearly 150 people were murdered.

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Those detained on suspicion of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall were brought to the building of the central office of the Russia's Investigative Committee.

In the near future, investigators will take measures to select a preventive measure in the form of detention in relation to the four suspects.

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Latest information from Russia's Investigative Committee on the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall:

▪️Four sets of combat ammunition, more than 500 rounds of ammunition and 28 magazines, and two AKs with which the attackers were armed were confiscated from the scene;

▪️Investigations are being carried out into four suspects;

▪️In the near future, the Investigative Committee will move to select preventive measures in the form of detention against four suspects;

▪️Currently, the bodies of 137 people have been found at the site of the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall, three of whom are children;

▪️To date, 62 bodies have been identified;

▪️Work has begun on issuing personal belongings, documents and cars to people who were in the concert complex on the day of the terrorist attack.

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180 people were injured as a result of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, according to the latest data:

▪️142 were hospitalized
▪️32 of them were since discharged
▪️while 38 were provided with outpatient care

according to Moscow region's Ministry of Health.

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