JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia Doubles Down on Blaming Concert Massacre on Ukraine and the West” – WSJ
“Campaign is part of push to divert attention from security failures, analysts say”
“Reeling from an apparent security lapse that allowed … heavily-armed men to massacre dozens of concertgoers in Moscow … Russia has gone into overdrive advancing a narrative that pins the blame on a usual suspect: Ukraine. Western officials have said Islamic State is responsible for the March 22 attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue, which killed at least 143 people and left hundreds wounded. The group claimed responsibility through the ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq. But Russian authorities, embroiled in a costly war with Ukraine and having convinced Russians that Kyiv and its Western backers are the source of its ills, quickly reverted to form. … The campaign to pin the latest incident on Ukraine and divert attention from Russia’s security failings [reportedly] was aimed not just at a domestic audience …. [According to] ActiveFence … tens of thousands of newly-launched X accounts … [have been] backing the Russian line on Ukrainian and Western complicity, in at least seven languages including Arabic. …”