I was last at the Crocus City Complex 2 weeks ago to have lunch in the mall with a friend from Higher Education. I used to live ‘across the road’ in Strogino from the location and went shopping there every 2-3 weeks. I’ve been to concerts (including Simply Red), conferences, exhibitions and even gave a speech at a gathering of sports professionals back in 2017. Now, my abiding memory is of camo wearing men walking along shooting cowering people and slitting one man’s throat. I can’t get it out of my head. I walked through Moscow Saturday night and there was nobody on the streets. Earlier I was in the gym with Tim, it was 1/3 the usual number for a Saturday and after we were able to choose our table to eat in the foodcourt - because it too was 1/3 full. I asked the shopping centre director for his view - “We told half our staff to stay home. We can’t risk it.” Russia froze. Russia went into itself. Russia was in shock. For 24 hours.
Within an hour of the first report the Pentagon told us Ukraine and Ukrainians were not involved, thanks to John Kirby. He also told us that it was a sign that Russians were unhappy with their choice of President and there was “discord” in the country. The fire was still burning, people still bleeding to death - yet there he was, a man who lauds his Irish ancestry spitting on those dead and dying in a Moscow building. Within minutes of his address, New York Times and other mouthpieces were telling us that ISIS did it. And if they didn’t, then Russia did it. The words “false flag” trended on Twitter/X and Ukraine’s President came out with his nightly video condeming Russian attacks earlier on Friday, on Saturday he said it showed Putin’s weakness. His Prime Minister blamed the Russian President. Emmanuel Macron sent a message of support to Kate Middleton’s cancer statement video….one of the more baffling moments of the night. The narrative was set and we had to follow it.
Nord Stream - Russia did it. Someone did it. Doesn’t matter who did it.
Novaya Kakhovka Dam - Russia did it. Had to be Russia. It just happened.
Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant - Russia are shelling themselves. Russia are cutting the power lines within the Ukraine territory, and shelling themselves.
Mariupol Hospital - Russia bombed it. There was no military. There was military, but we don’t know whose they were. Let’s not speak about it.
Konstantinovka - Russian missile hit the shopping centre. Who cares what the NYT say, doesn’t matter, they’re Russian-speakers (actual words from Mikhail Podolyak).
Przewodów (Poland) missile strike - Russia did it, Article 4, let’s go baby. It wasn’t Russia (Joe Biden). Say nothing more, but Russia is to blame for firing a missile.
Ukraine internal border shelling - Russia did it. Russian troops shelled from the Ukraine side. Doesn’t matter, they were leaving for Russian-held land anyway.
1st bombing of Crimean bridge - Russia did it. Hihi, we won’t tell you. A year on, ok, we did it, so what.
Murder of Daria Dugina - Russians did it themselves. Does it matter? Yeah, so what, we did it.
Murder of Vladlen Tatarsky - Russia did it. Who knows. It happened.
Bucha - Nothing to see here. Wait, Russia did it. Russia, probably did it. Who cares, but let’s say Russia did it and have no further investigation.
Denys Kireyev (Peace negotiator & national hero) - Russia killed him, he was their spy. He was escaping detention. He was an enemy of the state.
Belgorod New Year Market - Who cares.
And on, and on. And on, and on. And yet - there is method to their madness.
In January 2023 I wrote about the EU-sponsored conference on why a destroyed and dismantled Russia is good for business. Some of the ‘leaders’ who were present and representing their ‘constituents declared they knew what was best for their people. Now, when we think of politicians and leaders being household names - these people weren’t even names in their own households. So that UK and Irish people might fully understand, they’d struggle to be asked to turn on the Christmas tree lights in their own living room. However the plan is in place, break up Russia, install friendly leaders and rip the guts from them.
From early March Ukraine-supported Russian neonazis made incursions into border areas in Russia’s South and West - Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk regions. These 3, and Voronezh, have been under attack for almost 2 years. When rockets, drones and missiles kill civilians in Belgorod, Kiev will deny knowing anything. Zelensky will sneer and shrug, foreign journalists will ask again, he’ll say “Who knows what is happening there.” Yes, Russia is not immune to attack, not at all. Russia should answer for any and all crimes committed since February 24, 2022. So too should Ukraine, USA, UK and other supporters of the madness. Including Friday’s massacre.
Are we to believe it these killers just happened to be escaping back into Ukraine by chance? Are we to believe that they were doing it to kill Christians and other heathens? Are we to believe that Washington and the entire western media know it was ISIS-K and nothing to do with Ukraine within an hour of the event - when almost 2 years on they don’t know what happened to Nord Stream? Or who shot JFK?
Are we to believe that the warnings issued by Washington about impending mass attacks on March 7 was just, by chance? Are we to believe that this has no US involvement, despite ISIS and their offshoots being set up and nurtured by American intelligence? A former CIA-man Osama Bin Laden and his formerly US-backed terror group Al Qaeda were set up to kill Russians, then just turned bad. Are we to believe that a 19-year-old hairdresser simply decided to go on a killing spree for fun? Are we to believe the rabid rantings of extremists who are desperate for a reckoning between Islam and Christianity - see Visegrad News (run by the Polish intelligence services).
One thing is for sure. This horrific, insane event has hit deep into the Russian heart. It has not, as is being reported, shown or sown discord between Russians. This heinous crime has made people look to foreign media to see what to believe. What do they read? “The ghost of Russia’s past wars come back to haunt Moscow” - CNN. I checked, Russian media on 9/11 and the days following didn’t write such about America. I further checked if anything similar was written by Russian media about British Imperial crimes on and in the days following 7/7 2005, it wasn’t. Even Irish media didn’t crow about the famines or 800 years of occupation when the deadly Canary Wharf bombing happened in 1996.
Russians looked at Telegram, then at BBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo - they wanted to see what was being written. How the world would stand with them at this horrible time. They saw lies. They saw sneering, jeering and as Brendan O’Connor on Irish radio said - ‘sure they had it coming.’ As messages rolled in, including one genuinely honest one from Antony Blinken, Russia and Russians turned further from western words and realised that they need to forget about living up to some ideal that will never see them accepted. They turned towards nations that want them, need them and respect them. One month to the day that Viktoria Nuland said Russia should expect “surprises”, the slaughter on March 22, 2024, has driven another bunch of nails into the Russia-West relationship.
It's worth noting that not one single person I know living outside of Russia said anything at all to me about the attack. Yet when Navalny died, well of course there were plenty of comments. It's absolutely absurd. Thanks for your article, as always.