Washington has insisted there is no reason to search for any other potential suspects besides Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), after Moscow said it was looking at certain Western companies and government officials as part of an investigation into the funding of a string of terrorist attacks in Russia.
The Russian Investigative Committee has “established that the funds, flowing through commercial organizations, including the oil and gas conglomerate Burisma Holdings, operating in Ukraine, have been used in recent years to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia,” spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said on Tuesday.
Besides last month’s Crocus City Hall massacre outside Moscow, the investigation is looking at other acts of terrorism, including the assassinations of prominent public figures and the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated Washington’s narrative on the Crocus atrocity, while dismissing Moscow's allegations.
“It’s nonsense,” Jake Sullivan stated. “Russia knows it was ISIS who committed the attack in Moscow, we know it was ISIS who committed the attack in Moscow, we warned Russia of an impending terrorist attack in Moscow, and all of the rest of this is noise.”
Russia launched a probe into allegations that Ukraine and its Western backers are involved in terrorist activities on Russian soil after a referral by several lawmakers in the wake of the March 22 shooting and arson attack, which claimed the lives of at least 140 people.
The investigation has allegedly established that at least some of the terrorist funding was funneled through Ukrainian companies, including the notorious Burisma Holdings – former employers of US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Washington issued a public warning about an imminent attack in Russia in early March, weeks before the Crocus City Hall massacre. The US has since repeatedly claimed that all evidence points to ISIS-K, an Afghanistan-based offshoot of the terrorist group that once controlled parts of Iraq and Syria, as the sole mastermind and perpetrator.
The secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said last week that the US is refusing to allow any discussion of potential Ukrainian involvement in last month’s terrorist attack near Moscow because Washington is ultimately accountable for Kiev’s actions.