‘The US pulled the strings using Ukraine's hands’: Ordinary Russians on the Moscow Concert Attack

Sputnik asked Moscow residents about one of the largest terrorist attacks in the history of modern Russia. How did Russian society react and who do they think was behind the attack?

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Top US and Ukrainian officials accused of orchestrating terror campaign against Russia

Russian authorities have initiated an investigation in allegations that top US and Ukrainian officials may be involved in terrorist attacks against Russia.

The inquest was prompted by a statement issued by a group of Russian lawmakers who urged the country's Investigative Committee to look into what they described as evidence of “an organized criminal (terrorist) group consisting of top US officials” and NATO leaders.

The lawmakers also alleged that this group includes “Biden’s Ukrainian business partners” – namely, the owner of the infamous gas production company Burisma – as well as Ukraine’s political leadership and Ukrainian spy agency officers.

Having asked to review the claims contained within this statement, the lawmakers also urged the Investigative Committee to “bring individuals and legal entities involved in the financing of terrorism to justice.”

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🇰🇿 Kazakhstan denies allegations that the drones used to attack Russia's Tatarstan were launched there

“The information disseminated in some Telegram channels that the drones that allegedly attacked the objects of the Republic of Tatarstan were launched from the territory of Kazakhstan is not true,” the country's Defense Ministry said on Telegram.

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Russian space corporation Roscosmos has approved a draft design of the Russian orbital station.

Its deployment is planned for the period from 2027 to 2032. The station will have an open modular architecture and will fly around the Earth in a polar orbit.

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Remembering Vladlen Tatarsky: A victim of the Ukrainian regime

Exactly a year ago, Russian war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in a blast at a St. Petersburg café.

The 40-year-old was a well-known former military commander and a war correspondent with hundreds of thousands of followers on Russian social media.

Tatarsky fell victim to a terrorist attack involving an improvised explosive device brought to the public space by Daria Trepova, who was later charged with 27 years in prison.

Upon thorough investigation, Russia’s Investigative Committee concluded that Trepova was recruited by Ukrainian services and committed the act on their orders.

Tatarsky’s murder is on the list of Ukraine’s terrorist attacks against Russian infrastructure and public figures, also including the murder of writer and journalist Oles Buzina, political analyst and publicist Darya Dugina, journalist Gonzalo Lira, and the assassination attempt against writer Zakhar Prilepin.

A Donetsk native, Tatarsky joined the Donbass People's Militia in the wake of the Maidan coup in 2014 and Kiev authorities’ violence against the sovereignty-seeking people of Donetsk and Lugansk.

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Why Chasov Yar is the key to liberating the Donetsk People's Republic

"The one who controls Chasov Yar receives a very serious advantage in the entire surrounding area," Sergey Poletaev, a political and military analyst, told Sputnik. "It is a defense hub [for the Ukrainian military]. Whoever controls it actually controls everything – the entire defense in the northern part of the Donetsk People's Republic."

Chasov Yar is located on a hill seven kilometers west of Artemovsk (also known as Bakhmut) which was liberated by Russia in May 2023. The city's geographical position makes it important from a strategic standpoint, as it overlooks the surrounding area for many miles.

The Russian military is now less than a mile from the city, adviser to the head of the DPR Igor Kimakovsky told Sputnik on April 2. As the Russian forces are getting closer to Chasov Yar, taking the main roads running into the city under their control, the importance of the settlement as a Ukrainian military hub is fading, according to Kimakovsky.

Presently, the so-called Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration – an elongated, almost continuous line of cities – remains under the control of Ukraine, Poletaev noted. This chain of cities has been Ukraine's main defense line in Donbass since 2014.

"Accordingly, in order to liberate Donbass, we need to take it," the military analyst said. "This is a very serious operation. With the exception of the February 2022 op, we have not yet carried out strategic operations of that scale. Thus, it is necessary to create conditions for accomplishing this task. One of these conditions will be the liberation of Chasov Yar."

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🇷🇺🇧🇾 April 2 marks the Day of Unity of the Peoples of Russia and Belarus

The partnership between the two countries includes not only economic, political and cultural interaction, but also military cooperation.

Watch a special video prepared by Sputnik to find out more about military cooperation between Russia and Belarus.

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Vladimir Putin said Serbian movie director Emir Kusturica's assessments regarding events in Ukraine coincide with his own.

"Your assessments of today, including the tragic events in Ukraine, fully coincide with mine. That's how it is. What happened in Serbia and what is happening now between Russia and Ukraine, the glorification, the elevation of fascist elements from the past, giving them new life in the present, are certainly very similar phenomena," Putin said at a meeting with Kusturica on Tuesday.

Kusturica, in turn, thanked the president for restoring historical justice.

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America Last: Outgoing US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vows to keep lobbying for Ukrainian interests.

Despite planning to step down as Senate Republican leader after the US elections in November, the 82-year old McConnell told reporters that he would remain in politics to battle against skeptics of new Ukraine funding.

"I'm not leaving the Senate. And I'm particularly involved in fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party. The symbol lately is ‘are we gonna help Ukraine or not.’”

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▪️Why Chasov Yar is the key to liberating the Donetsk People's Republic

▪️Putin says Russia will identify not only the perpetrators of the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack but also all links and beneficiaries

▪️Why is Israeli attack on Iran’s Syria consulate a ‘blatant violation’ of international law and what was Israel trying to accomplish?

▪️Drone attack on Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan : what’s known so far?

▪️Why is NATO holding drills in Moldova?

▪️Who were the aid workers killed in the Israeli airstrike in Gaza?

▪️Ex-CIA analyst: Russia's FAB-3000 bombs could be 'game changer' in Ukraine conflict

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Ukraine openly admits to fueling ethnic tensions in Russia after Crocus terror attack

Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), disclosed to The Times that the center is exploiting the attack to stoke ethnic divisions in Russia.

The CCD infiltrated Russian social media and Telegram chats, amplifying sympathy for the terrorists, pitting ethnic groups against Russian police, and inciting hatred against national minorities.

The CCD has about 50 full-time analysts and is subordinated to the National Security and Defense Council, the body supervising Ukraine's security services.

Russian Investigative Committee has found that the terrorists responsible for the Crocus City Hall shooting were apparently funded by Ukrainian masterminds. The Russian Foreign Ministry alleges that Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) head Vasyl Malyuk could be involved in the terror attacks against Russia.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned against provoking an increase in ethnic enmity and Islamophobia in Russia: "It is unacceptable, I want to emphasize this, to use recent tragic events to provoke national hatred, xenophobia, Islamophobia and so on," he said.

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US Treasury Department removes former European subsidiary of Russia's VTB bank from sanctions list, according to a statement.

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The US Treasury Department on Tuesday removed a former European subsidiary of Russia’s VTB Bank from its sanctions list.

In April 2022, German regulator BaFin said that Russia’s VTB can no longer exercise any control over its European subsidiary in connection with new sanctions. The watchdog shortly after appointed a special representative to help run the European arm of the Russian bank.

In March 2023, an annual meeting of new shareholders decided to liquidate VTB Bank Europe as of April 1, 2023. VTB calls the moves illegal and political.

In November 2023, the former subsidiary changed its name to OWH SE after VTB refused to allow it to operate under the brand.

In February 2024, VTB said that OWH SE denies VTB's right of ownership over the German bank and is demanding the return of dividends since 2013 worth more than 433.8 million euros.

Western countries did not expect Russian banks to be able to cope with sanctions imposed against them, Vladimir Putin said in 2023, noting that the Russian economy has withstood sanctions pressure.

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The US was not notified by the Israelis about their strike or the intended target of their strike in Damascus, Syria that killed several senior Iranian military personnel, Pentagon deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh said.

“We were not notified by the Israelis about their strike or the intended target of their strike in Damascus,” Singh said during a press briefing.

Singh added that the US does not support strikes on diplomatic missions.

"We have made it very clear in private channels to Iran that we were not responsible for the strike that happened in Damascus. I would reiterate, the US had no involvement in that strike, and we had no knowledge about that ahead of time," Singh told reporters.

The US had reached out to Iran as it wanted to make its non-involvement in the attack very clear amid high tensions in the region, the spokesperson added.

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The Israeli air force strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday killed four Syrians and injured 13 more, Syrian Health Minister Hassan Al-Ghabbash said.

"The number of Syrian citizens killed in the Israeli aggression against the Iranian consulate on Monday reached four, 13 are injured," the minister told Syria’s state-run SANA broadcaster.

On Monday, Israel carried out an airstrike on the consular annex of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, destroying the building. Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said seven of its members were killed in the attack, including two commanders.

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North Korea successfully test-fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile Hwasong-16, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported, citing North Korean state media.

The report cited the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday as saying that all North Korean missiles are now solid-fuel and nuclear capable.

On Tuesday morning, Yonhap reported, citing the South Korean military, that Pyongyang launched an an unspecified ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. The Japanese Defense Ministry later said the missile flew 650 kilometers (403 miles) at a maximum altitude of 100 kilometers and splashed outside Japan's exclusive economic zone.

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The US warning for Russia about a potential terrorist attack allegedly mentioned Crocus City Hall as a possible target two weeks before the attack, The Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed US official.

Previously, The New York Times reported, citing European and US security officials, that the US intelligence agencies did not provide the Russian side with all the information they had about the threat of a terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in the Moscow Region out of fear that Russian authorities might learn about their intelligence sources or methods of work.

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov also said that the information transmitted by the United States on the preparation of a terrorist attack was of a general nature, and the Russian special services responded to it.

On March 22, several armed men broke into Crocus City Hall concert venue. The attack left 695 casualties, including 144 dead, according to the latest data from the Russian Emergencies Ministry.

The four main suspects in the case tried to flee the scene in a car but were detained and charged with terrorism. Russian authorities believe their plan was to flee to Ukraine, where the masterminds of the attack had arranged a safe haven for them. An investigation is underway.

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Kim Jong Un guides test-fire of North Korean new hypersonic ballistic missile

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided the first test-fire of Hwasongpho-16B, a new-type intermediate-range solid-fueled ballistic missile loaded with newly-developed hypersonic gliding warhead, KCNA reported.

All North Korean missiles are now solid-fuel and nuclear-capable and are equipped with maneuverable warheads, agency added.

The state media reported that the launch of the missile was aimed at confirming the designed technical specifications and verifying the reliability of the weapon system.

"It was conducted in the way of verifying the characteristics of gliding-skip flight orbit and cross-range maneuvering capability of the hypersonic glide vehicle (warhead) while confining its range to less 1 000 kilometers, in consideration of safety, and forcibly controlling the speed and altitude by means of delaying the start-up of the second-stage engine and rapidly changing the flight orbit in the active region," KCNA reported.

The agency added that the characteristics of the missile and its maneuverability were proved through the test-fire.

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‘Havana Syndrome’ more likely US homegrown as Western media bangs anti-Russia drum

The so-called “Havana Syndrome,” a long-debunked theory that has been revived by Western media in recent days is part of the “game” the administration of US President Joe Biden plays of trying to blame “everything on Russia,” Michael Maloof, a former senior security analyst in the office of the US secretary of defense told Sputnik's Fault Lines.

“Why would ‘60 Minutes’ be resurrecting it? Because somebody put a bug in their ear and they’re trying once again [to] play the game of the Biden administration to blame everything on Russia,” Maloof asserted.

If there is a real affliction affecting these people, Maloof contends that it is more likely coming from within the US than from Russia. “One of those who got hit was in an area where the president of the United States was, and that was in Western Europe. Why wasn’t [the president] affected? Or anybody around him?”

“The only thing I can conclude is that this is coming from within… They’re saying who it isn’t but not what it is, and that’s strange, which means they don’t know,” he added.

“So, once again, this tortuous approach is basically to put up their own little narrative and then shoot it down, but say it still could be true. And this is supposed to be our basis for fact-finding? I don’t think so,” Maloof said, adding “You cannot mistrust these people enough.”

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Magnitude 7.5, 6.6 quakes hit near Taiwan, tsunami warning issued in Japan's south

A 7.5-magnitude and 6.6-magnitude earthquakes were registered in the vicinity of Taiwan early on Wednesday, and tremors were felt on the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa and Miyako, prompting authorities to issue tsunami warnings for the islands, data of the Japan Meteorological Agency showed.

The 7.5-magnitude earthquake was recorded at 8:58 a.m. local time on Wednesday (23:58 GMT on Tuesday) near the eastern coast of Taiwan at a "very shallow depth," the agency said without providing further details. The second earthquake was recorded in less than 15 minutes - at 9:11 a.m. local time.

Tremors up to magnitude 4 were also felt in the southern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, according to the agency.

After the earthquakes, tsunami warnings were issued for the islands of Okinawa, Miyako and Yaeyama. The agency said tsunami waves as high as three meters (10 feet) were expected immediately for the Miyako and Yaeyama area and estimated that tsunami waves would reach Okinawa at 10:00 a.m. local time.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

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US President Joe Biden in a statement called for a swift probe into the incident that killed seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen in Gaza.

"Israel has pledged to conduct a thorough investigation into why the aid workers’ vehicles were hit by airstrikes. That investigation must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public. Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed," said Biden in a White House release.

The president added that Israel has not done enough to protect civilians and that the United States will continue its humanitarian efforts in Gaza while urging Israel to do more to facilitate the aid.

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