'These aren't real Muslims’: Moscow terrorists were mercenaries engaged in a ‘political act’

“These aren't hardcore ISIS followers,” said former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter of the suspects apprehended after last week’s horrific terrorist attack in a Moscow suburb.

Ritter made the claim on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program where he explained that various aspects of the attackers’ conduct were incongruent with that of typical ISIS terrorists. The former UN weapons inspector noted the terrorists were observed in a photo using their left hand rather than their right to pronounce allegiance to the creed of Islam, while also blurring their faces in images posted online.

Ritter added that the attackers attempted to return to their “true north” of Ukraine after the attack rather than going out as professed “martyrs.”

“These aren't jihadists, these are mercenaries,” Ritter concluded. “These are people who took money to commit an act of irregular warfare.”

Recently released video from the scene of the attack appeared to show one of the terrorists scoping out the Crocus City Hall venue earlier this month. The evidence has led to speculation the attack was originally intended to be carried out before Russia’s presidential contest in order to disrupt the election and undermine trust in President Vladimir Putin.

“This was a political act linked to an American policy objective being implemented by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Ritter concluded.

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Russia considers the position of the United States on the investigation into the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow as "biased," Washington is trying to "put Ukraine out of harm's way," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik.

"They exposed themselves. They also started screaming, not calling for an investigation, but began to put Ukraine out of harm's way. Their bias and involvement in this story are obvious. If it had not been there, the first statements would have been what they should have been, namely about the need for investigation, probe, presentation of facts," Zakharova stressed.

On Tuesday, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov said the first information received from suspects in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack proved a Ukrainian trace. He added that, while radical Islamists had prepared the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall, the Ukrainian special forces were involved. The Western intelligence and Ukraine needed the attack to create panic in Russian society, Bortnikov also said, adding that the mastermind behind the terrorist attack has not been identified yet.

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Hungary will extend the ban on imports of Ukrainian agricultural products at the national level if Brussels does not exclude grain and oilseed products from the list of products subject to duty-free imports to the European Union, Hungarian Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy said.

"In the coming days, a decree on the extension of the autonomous trade liberalization measure will pass ... If the issue of grains and oilseeds is not resolved in the decree, the Hungarian government will still leave the border closed at the national level and will not let Ukrainian agricultural products into Hungary because we owe so much to the Hungarian farming community," the minister said in a video message on Tuesday aired by Hungarian broadcaster M1.

He added that Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi attended a meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council and said that 17 million tonnes of grain had been exported from Ukraine through the Black Sea ports.

Nagy called in such a case for a return to Ukraine's traditional agricultural products markets in the Middle East in Asia and Africa and for banning duty-free import of Ukrainian goods to the EU.

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Is the Biden administration ‘slow rolling’ Assange case to keep the journalist in limbo?

Julian Assange’s long-running legal saga took another unexpected turn on Tuesday when the UK’s High Court of Justice ruled the Wikileaks founder would be granted a temporary reprieve from his expected extradition to the United States. Wilmer Leon, host of Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program, explained the court was seeking assurances from the US that Assange would be granted First Amendment rights and would not be given the death penalty.

Leon spoke to a series of guests to assess the latest development in the case:

▪️ “It's a limited appeal,” noted analyst Steve Poikonen. “They're not allowed to introduce some evidence that shows that the CIA was plotting to kidnap and possibly murder Assange while he was under protective custody of the Ecuadorian embassy.” Assange’s lawyers are also barred from arguing the extradition amounts to political persecution.

▪️ “It's very complicated and it's really just, I think, slow-rolling to try and keep him in jail as much as possible,” said journalist Jim Kavanagh. “They hope he'll die in jail… I don't think it's going to be a good thing for the Biden administration, especially in the current circumstances, to bring him into the United States and have them put him on trial here.”

▪️ “I look at how they're just kind of prolonging the legal proceedings and it seems like there's a lot of people in the British legal system that really don't want to have their fingerprints on whatever happens to Julian Assange,” Analyst Caleb Maupin concluded. “They're trying to do everything they can to not be the one responsible for what ultimately occurs.”

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▪️ 'These aren't real Muslims’: Moscow terrorists were mercenaries engaged in a ‘political act’ – Scott Ritter

▪️ UN report accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza

▪️ Pro-Palestinian protesters dump manure outside homes of Jake Sullivan and Lloyd Austin to protest US support for Israel's operation in Gaza

▪️ Is the Biden administration ‘slow rolling’ Assange case to keep the journalist in limbo?

▪️ Cancer incidence, mortality after NATO bombing of Yugoslavia still on the rise

More stories:

▪️ Hungary considers extending the ban on imports of Ukrainian agricultural products at the national level

▪️ Biden claims he went by train over the Francis Scott Key Bridge which has no rail lines

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🇷🇺 A Russian Emergencies Ministry Il-76 airplane is flying to Egypt with a cargo of humanitarian aid for Gaza Strip civilians

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French President Emmanuel Macron's remarks about sending troops to Ukraine have angered US officials, who are unhappy about provoking a possible conflict with Moscow, Bloomberg reports.

"His controversial comment about boots on the ground earned an instant and very public recrimination from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and angered US officials who privately say such a move might even risk fomenting a clash with Moscow," Bloomberg says, citing a senior official familiar with discussions among the allies.

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🗣 There is a direct link between the use of depleted uranium by NATO troops and the rise in cancer rates – this is a lesson for Ukraine, Serbian lawyer Srdjan Aleksic said

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Russian paratroopers disrupted rotation of Ukrainian forces by destroying a group of enemy infantry using a Fagot ATGM, in the Razdolovka area north of Soledar.

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The EU has decided to withhold five billion euros in income from frozen Russian assets to pay for legal battles with Russian citizens, Politico reports.

"Euroclear, the body holding the vast majority of Russia's central bank assets in Europe .... has been allowed to retain the profits accrued from investing them in 2022 and 2023 rather than use the cash to support Ukraine's war effort," Politico says.

Earlier Kremlin said that the proposal to use Russian assets to finance Kiev leads to the destruction of the legal foundations of European and international law.

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‘Joint statement of party leaders’: Three Greek political parties have said the terrorist attack at Crocus was carried out by a mercenary group hired by Ukraine under the supervision of US intelligence services.

The document signed by the leaders of the parties expresses the view that the attack in Russia was not carried out by the terrorist group ISIS*, but by mercenaries paid for by Ukraine under US supervision. "The fantasy that the unspeakable tragedy at the Moscow concert was inspired, planned and executed by ISIS is ludicrous," the politicians emphasized.

"It is naive and absurd to believe that a fanatical Islamic organization like IS, instead of opposing Israel, which is unleashing an unprecedented genocide in the Gaza Strip, is attacking Assad's Syria, Iran and now Russia, which supports the Palestinian cause. And at the same time with their barbaric attack on a Moscow concert hall they are doing favors for Ukraine, the US, NATO and the EU, who openly support Israel. Greece must make peace initiatives in Ukraine before the storms of war and possibly a nuclear winter destroy and overwhelm Europe and the planet," they said.

*Terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries.

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🇷🇸 Serbian residents told Sputnik about the health damage caused by NATO depleted uranium shells

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❗️Russian troops repelled 9 Ukrainian counterattacks near Avdeyevka; Ukrainian losses amounted to 255 servicemen.

🇷🇺🪖 More statements from the Russian MoD's daily briefing on the progress of the special military op in Ukraine:

🔺 Ukraine lost up to 220 servicemen near Donetsk.

🔺 Russian air defenses destroyed 210 Ukrainian drones and shot down 21 HIMARS and Vampire MLRS missiles.

🔺 Battlegroup Vostok repelled three Ukrainian counterattacks to the south of Donetsk; Ukraine lost up to 60 servicemen.

🔺 The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the Ukrainian PzH 2000 self-propelled gun and two electronic warfare stations near Donetsk.

🔺 The Russian Armed Forces hit the assembly and storage sites of Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles.

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Britain would not last longer than a couple of months in combat in the event of a conflict with Russia, writes UK newspaper The Telegraph, which spoke to British officers.

The newspaper refers to remarks by Robert Magowan, deputy chief of Defense Staff. The main issue in a potential confrontation with Russia, according to the officers, would be a lack of ammunition and equipment.

Russia has repeatedly stated that it does not intend to engage in conflicts with other states.

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🇷🇺🇰🇵 A delegation from North Korea headed by Foreign Trade Minister Yun Jong Ho has arrived in Moscow, Alexander Kozlov, the chairman of the intergovernmental commission on cooperation between Russia and North Korea, said on Wednesday.

"Today, we received a large delegation of North Korea, headed by Minister of Foreign Economic Affairs Yun Jong Ho. He and I are co-chairs of the intergovernmental Russian-Korean commission," Kozlov wrote on Telegram, adding that the delegation will stay for several days.

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