Several critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin have begun accusing the country’s government of carrying out the Moscow concert venue shooting as a “false flag” operation to justify escalation against Ukraine.
On Friday, a group of gunmen opened fire at Crocus City Hall, a large music concert venue in the western portion of Moscow, according to initial reports from the state-run news agency RIA Novosti. At least 133 people died in the incident, according to the Associated Press. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), as well as top Russian officials, dubbed it a “terrorist attack.” Russian authorities said they’ve detained 11 people connected to the attack, including four who were allegedly directly involved.
Shortly after the attack, the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility. In his first address about the situation, Putin alleged that Ukrainian entities had coordinated with the gunmen to help them try and escape over the border into Ukraine, though he stopped short of outright accusing the Ukrainian government of any involvement. Newsweek has not yet been able to verify Putin’s claims and Ukraine has firmly denied it had anything to do with the attack.
Across several recent posts on X, formerly Twitter, critics of Putin and the Russian government have alleged that the shooting was a “false flag” operation concocted by the Kremlin, potentially to be used as a pretense for a later escalation of the war in Ukraine that has been ongoing since February 2022.
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“Well, in general, everything’s becoming clearer,” WarTranslated, an independent media project that translates materials about the war into English, wrote. “First – easy rumors that a vehicle with Ukrainian license plates was spotted. Now Putin directly says that Ukraine has prepared a window for crossing the border. In a day or two they will say that the Ukrainian special services coordinated the actions of the terrorists. After some time, the ‘Kiev regime’ will be accused of organizing this crime, and mobilisation and/or other measures will be announced. Who was saying that ‘false flag’ was bull****?”
“Moscow shootings make me think of two things: absolute absence of safety for ordinary people despite ever-growing enforcement apparatus; and second, it smells a false-flag operation,” Boris Bondarev, whose X bio describes himself as a “Russian diplomat in exile,” wrote in his own post.
Some also made the comparison to a similar incident from 1999, in which alleged false flag acts of violence were used to justify war with Chechnya.
“Russia is a police state which fails every time it attempts to police anything other than unarmed peaceful protesters,” journalist Alexey Kovalyov wrote in response to Bondarev. “That, or I’m now more than ever convinced that the 1999 Moscow bombings were indeed Putin’s false flag.”
“No point in making any big statements on the Moscow shooting, but I wouldn’t rule out a false flag operation,” researcher Pekka Kallioniemi wrote. “This is what FSB/Putin did in 1999 to justify the Second Chechen War and improve Putin’s popularity and image as a strong leader.”
Newsweek reached out to foreign defense experts via email for comment on Saturday afternoon.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.