US Edition
Kremlin disinformation campaign blames MI6 for Moscow terror attack
The Kremlin has launched a disinformation campaign spreading false claims that MI6 and other Western intelligence agencies were responsible for Friday’s terror attack in Moscow.
A network of automated bot social media accounts has been sharing links to fake websites, designed to look like well-known news outlets, that blame the West for a massacre in which 137 people died, The Insider reported.
In what was the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades, four men burst into the Crocus City Hall, spraying people with bullets and letting off explosives before attempting to make a getaway by car.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, with its claim backed up by US intelligence.
But the Russian bot network has sought to discredit these claims, suggesting Ukraine and the West are responsible.
According to a report by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, the spam attack was carried out by the Russian IT companies National Technologies and Social Design Agency, both of which fall under EU sanctions and have been linked to the Kremlin.
The owner of National Technologies is Rostec, Russia’s state-owned defence conglomerate, headed by Sergey Chemezov, a former KGB agent and a close associate of Vladimir Putin.
One of the bot network’s claims, designed to implicate UK intelligence services, is that British authorities said Ukraine was not involved “almost immediately” after the Crocus City Hall attack.
In a separate example, a clone of the German publication Der Spiegel published a piece titled: “Legalised Terrorism. A terrorist attack in Russia raises the question of Ukraine’s cooperation with Islamist terrorist groups.”
Other groups blamed for the attack include the Ukrainian government, the US and the “collective West”.
The operation is carried out by two principle methods, with some bots posting false stories on their own Twitter accounts and others sharing it in the comments section of unrelated posts – such as threads on football matches or TV shows – in order to gain traction.
Called Doppelganger, the bot network behind the attack has previously been accused of sharing fake news articles on websites masquerading as Der Spiegel and Fox News.
Past stunts include spreading fake quotes from the musician Beyonce, claiming the US destroyed the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and from the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, accusing Ukraine of behaving like “charlatans”.
Following Friday’s attack, the network has reportedly distributed disinformation in multiple languages for the first time, in a possible sign that the Kremlin’s propaganda machine is expanding its reach to a wider range of Western audiences.
That’s all for today
Thank you for tuning in to today’s live blog. We’ll be back tomorrow to bring you all the latest from the war in Ukraine.
Key moments from today:
- The cost of repairing the damage caused by Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last week is likely to run into the “billions”, the country’s energy minister has warned.
- Russian ultra-nationalism is “likely” fueling Islamist group recruitment efforts, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has warned.
- A total of 401 settlements across Ukraine experienced blackouts this morning due to Russian shelling of Kyiv’s energy infrastructure.
- Nine people have been injured after Moscow attacked Kyiv with hypersonic missiles, the US ambassador has said.
- Nine hundred people have been evacuated from the Izmailovsky hospital in Moscow due to a bomb scare, Tass, the Russian state-owned news agency, reported.
- Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, has urged authorities to kill “everyone involved” after a terrorist attack at a concert venue in Moscow on Friday night left 137 people dead.
- The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been left “functionally inactive” following a series of Ukrainian missile strikes, Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, has said.
- Russian forces have made “marginal advances” amid ongoing fighting in several positions in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.
- Russia has ordered four men accused of killing at least 137 people in the Moscow concert hall massacre to be held in custody on “terror” charges.
- A fire broke out at a major Russian power plant after a wave of Ukrainian drones strikes in the area.
- Around11 people were injured in after a Russian Shahed drone attack on the southern city of Mykolaiv, the regional administration posted on Facebook. The strikes also damaged residential homes and cars, leaving two people in hospital.
Moscow terrorist was paid to carry out massacre, says Russian media
One of the Crocus City Hall terrorists said he was paid to carry out the massacre, Pravda, the Russian media website, reported.
The assailant, who was not named, reportedly said that he carried out the attack for one million rubles (£8,500), half of which was transferred to his account before the attack took place.
The men were supposedly also provided with weapons and were trained for a month beforehand.
“They delivered the weapons themselves, they were texting me on Telegram, there were no names, nothing,” the man reportedly said in his testimony. “He promised about a million rubles, he said we had to kill people, ‘no matter whom’, they dropped the location for the attack.”
The report comes amid a widespread campaign of disinformation surrounding the origins and objectives of the terrorists, with Kremlin figures, including Vladimir Putin, attempting to cast blame on Ukraine.
Russian ambassador in Poland ignores summons over missile incursion
Poland’s foreign ministry said Monday that the Russian ambassador in Warsaw failed to show for a summons issued after a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace over the weekend.
The “ambassador... did not appear at the foreign ministry today in order to explain the incident with the Russian cruise missile, which on March 24 breached Polish airspace,” ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski told reporters.
Poland’s summons comes after Moscow launched a wave of strikes on the Lviv on Sunday that saw one Russian cruise missile briefly fly into Polish airspace, according to Warsaw.
“The object entered Polish space near the town of Oserdow (Lublin Voivodeship) and stayed there for 39 seconds,” Poland’s armed forces said on Twitter.
Russian strikes cause ‘billions’ in damage to Ukrainian energy grid
The cost of repairing the damage caused by Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last week is likely to run into the “billions”, the country’s energy minister has warned.
In terms of the cost of repairs, “the real figures will be after assessment of the damage but I think it is in the region of billions, for sure”, German Gerashchenko told reporters.
Russia last week mounted its “biggest attack since the beginning of the full-scale invasion”, Mr Gerashchenko said, firing around 90 missiles and 60 drones at energy facilities across the country and killing at least five people.
Among facilities hit were Ukraine’s largest dam, the DniproHES hydroelectric power plant, and Europe’s largest nucelar power plant, both of which are based in Zaporizhzhia.
Update: Nine wounded in Kyiv missile strike
The number of people injured in a Kyiv missile strike has risen to nine after Ukrainian air defence systems downed two Russian missiles over the capital, sending metal debris crashing to the ground.
The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Sergiy Popko, said Russia had attacked with two ballistic missiles launched from the annexed Crimean peninsula.
He said both had been shot down but falling debris crashed onto several central districts. Officials said an arts academy building and a gym were damaged.
See post at 12.11pm for more details.
Russia weighs return of death penalty as Islamic State suspects tortured
Vladimir Putin has been urged to restore the death penalty amid open torture of suspects in the Islamic State attack on Crocus City Hall, which included one man having his ear cut off and force-fed back to him, writes Roland Oliphant.
Senior MPs and other allies of the Russian president have called for a three-decade moratorium on capital punishment to be ditched in the aftermath of the atrocity.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, wrote on his Telegram channel: “Do they have to be killed?” he asked. “They have to be. And will be.”
Vladimir Vasilyev, the head of the United Russia faction in the state Duma, Russia’s lower house, told Russian television on Saturday that capital punishment was being “considered seriously.”
Russian ultra-nationalism is likely fueling Islamist radicalisation, says leading think tank
Russian ultra-nationalism is “likely” fueling Islamist group recruitment efforts, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has warned.
The think tank said the Russian government’s “anti-migrant policies” and “an increasingly ultranationalist Kremlin that stresses the importance of Russian Orthodoxy in public life are likely further alienating migrant communities and generating animosities that Salafi-Jihadi groups can exploit in recruitment efforts”.
The analysis comes as the state Duma proposed a range of anti-migrant policies in response to the Crocus City Hall massacre on Friday, in which 137 people were killed.
The militant group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, with US intelligence backing up their claim.
Four hundred Ukrainian settlements without power due to Russian strikes
A total of 401 settlements across Ukraine experienced blackouts this morning due to Russian shelling of Kyiv’s energy infrastructure.
“There are new power outages in the Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Kherson oblasts due to combat actions,” Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national energy company, said in a statement.
The outages come after a massive wave of strikes on Friday targeting key power stations, including Ukraine’s largest hydroelectric power plant in Zaporizhzhia. The attacks cut the generating capacity of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy investor, by half.
Macron brands Russian attempts to pin Moscow terrorist attack on Ukraine ‘cynical’
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has said it would be “cynical” for Russia to blame the Moscow terror attack on Ukraine.
“I think that it would be both cynical and counterproductive for Russia itself and the security of its citizens to use this context to try and turn it against Ukraine,” he said.
Mr Macron joined the United States in saying intelligence indicated Islamic State was responsible for the attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that killed 137 people.
The information available to us...as well as to our main partners, indicates indeed that it was an entity of the Islamic State which instigated this attack,” he told reporters during a visit to French Guiana. “This group also tried to commit several actions on our own soil.”
Vladimir Putin has not publicly mentioned the Islamist group in connection with the attack, instead claiming the militants had been trying to escape to Ukraine.
Update: Seven wounded in Russian missile attack on Kyiv
Seven people, including a teenage girl, were wounded after Ukrainian air defence systems downed two Russian ballistic missiles over the capital, sending metal debris crashing to the ground, Kyiv’s mayor reported.
Footage and images of the incident posted on social media shows children running to shelters amid air raid sirens, followed by scenes of destruction with buildings reduced to rubble.
Vitali Klitschko said that seven people were wounded, including the teenage girl and two pregnant women with acute stress reactions.
“Two of them were hospitalised. The rest were treated at the scene. Rescuers continue to clear the rubble,” he wrote on social media.
Following the strikes, president Zelensky renewed his call for the west to deliver more air defence systems to Ukraine. “We never tire of repeating that Ukraine needs more air defense. This is security for our cities and saved human lives,” he said.
‘Hypersonic missile’ attack on Kyiv injures five
Five people have been injured after Moscow attacked Kyiv with hypersonic missiles, the US ambassador has said.
“Again this morning Russia is attacking Ukraine with hypersonic missiles. Loud explosions in Kyiv,” Bridget A. Brink, the US ambassador to Ukraine, posted on Twitter.
Explosions rang out across the Ukrainian capital at around 10.30am, badly damaging a three-storey building in the centre of the city and causing debris to rain down over three other districts.
Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s Mayor, said that five people were injured in the attack, including a 16-year-old girl who was sent to hospital.
Hypersonic missiles have the capacity to travel at more than five times the speed of sound, and generally approach targets from lower angles, making them much harder to detect and intercept.
Pictured: Rescue workers clear up Kyiv attack debris
‘900 people evacuated’ from Moscow hospital treating terrorist attack victims
Nine hundred people have been evacuated from the Izmailovsky hospital in Moscow due to a bomb scare, Tass, the Russian state-owned news agency, reported.
“The evacuation has been carried out, patients and staff have been moved to a safe distance. Dog handlers and special services are working,” Oleg Karpov, a director of the hosptial, told RIA Novosti, the Russian state-owned media outlet.
Mr Karpov clarified that the evacuation was from a consultative and diagnostic hub called the Pirogov cente - a separate building to where the victims of the Crocus massacre are being treated.
The hospital reportedly received a message about the explosion stating that backpacks containing improvised explosive devices and timers set for 40 minutes were hidden on several floors.
Kill ‘everyone involved’ in terrorist attacks, says former Russian president
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, has urged authorities to kill “everyone involved” after a terrorist attack at a concert venue in Moscow on Friday night left 137 people dead.
“Kill everyone invovled. Everyone. Who paid, who sympathised, who helped. Kill them all,” the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council wrote on Telegram.
Vladimir Vasilyev, another Russian parliamentary leader, said the subject of bringing back the death penalty will be “deeply, professionally, meaningfully studied”, after gunmen men burst into the Crocus City Hall venue near Moscow on Friday, killing at least 137 people and wounding 182.
The Kremlin said it would not participate in conversations about lifting the moratorium on the death penalty, which has not been used in Russia since 1996.
“We are not taking part in this discussion at the moment,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, told reporters.
Black Sea Fleet ‘functionally inactive’ after Ukrainian attacks
The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been left “functionally inactive” following a series of Ukrainian missile strikes, Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, has said.
”Putin’s continued illegal occupation of Ukraine is exacting a massive cost on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet which is now functionally inactive,” said Mr Shapps. “Russia has sailed the Black Sea since 1783 but is now forced to constrain [its] fleet to port. And even there Putin’s ships are sinking!”
Ukrainian forces on Sunday destroyed two large Russian warships, the Yamal and the Azov, in the Black Sea along with other facilities used by Moscow’s navy on the annexed Crimean peninsula.
The Black Sea Fleet has lost nearly a quarter of its warships since the February 2022 invasion.
Explosions heard in Kyiv
Air raid sirens rang out in Kyiv this morning as officials urged residents to take cover following a string of blasts in the centre of the capital.
“Explosions in Kyiv. Go to shelters immediately,” Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s Mayor, wrote on Telegram.
Missile debris came down in a central Kyiv district and a residential building was damaged, initial reports suggest.
Russia makes ‘marginal advances’ along eastern front, says leading think thank
Russian forces have made “marginal advances” amid ongoing fighting in several positions in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.
Geolocated footage shows Russia’s limited advance north of Novomykhailivka, southwest of the city of Donetsk, as well to the west of Avdiivka, near the vilage of Tonenke, it reported.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s army chief, said this fortnight that Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on making a breakthrough near Avdiivka, after the city fell last month following a months-long siege.
Russian forces also marched forwards in western Zaporizhzhia, capturing limited positions alongside the village of Verbove, east of Robotyne, as units stormed Ukrainian positions at dawn, the ISW reported.
Four suspected Moscow attackers held in custody after 137 killed
Russia has ordered four men accused of killing at least 137 people in the Moscow concert hall massacre to be held in custody on “terror” charges.
The investigators charged Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19, with committing a terrorist attack resulting in the death of others.
The men face life in prison, although Russian officials have clamoured for the lifting of a moratorium on the death penalty to deliver even harsher sentences.
In a series of late-night court hearings in Moscow that ran into the early hours, the four men - with bruises and cuts over their faces - were dragged into the court in front of dozens of reporters who had assembled at the capital’s Basmanny district court.
Court statements said two of the suspects accepted their guilt in the assault, though the men’s condition raised questions about whether they were speaking freely.
Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ordered that the men, all of whom were identified in the media as citizens of Tajikistan, be held in custody until May 22 pending investigation and trial.
Russia casts doubt on Islamic State responsibility for concert attack
The Kremlin has cast doubt on assertions by the United States that Islamic State was responsible for the Moscow terrorist attack on Friday that killed 137 people and injured 182 more.
“Attention - a question to the White House: Are you sure it’s ISIS? Might you think again about that?” Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said in an article for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
Ms Zakharova said the United States was spreading a version of the “bogeyman” of Islamic State to cover its “wards” in Kyiv and reminded readers that Washington supported the “mujahideen” fighters who fought Soviet forces in the 1980s.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, Russia’s deadliest in two decades carried out by four men who opened fire at concert-goers at Crocus City Hall.
The United States has publicly said it believes the claims of the militant group, which has since released alleged bodycam footage from the attack. However, Vladimir Putin has not publicly mentioned the Islamist militant group in connection with the attackers and has alluded to Ukrainian involvement.
Emergency power shutdowns in Odesa after Russian attack
Emergency power outages have been introduced in Odesa after a Russian air attack damaged an energy facility, DTEK, Ukraine’s top energy provider, said.
“The situation remains difficult,” DTEK posted on Telegram. “In order to reduce the load on the network, electric transport will not operate in the city today, and industrial consumption is also limited.”
The administration of the southern port city said the region were attacked by several waves of drones launched by Russia. Four of the air weapons were shot down over the Odesa and neighbouring Mykolaiv regions.
Debris from a falling drone sparked a fire at the power facility, which was promptly put out, the administration added.
Russian power plant on fire following Ukrainian drone strikes
A fire broke out at a major Russian power plant after a wave of Ukrainian drones strikes in the area.
Two power units at the Novocherkassk power station in Rostov - one of the largest in southwest Russia - were taken offline, Vasily Golubev, the regional governor, said in a post on Telegram.
“A fire broke out at the transformer substation ... which was promptly put out,” said Mr Golubev. “There were no casualties. The causes of the fire are being investigated.”
Russia’s defence ministry reported downing 11 Ukrainian drones over the Rostov region, while footage of the alleged incident posted on social media shows a large explosion erupting into the night sky.
The explosion comes after the US last week reportedly urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning that continued drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices.
Nearly a dozen injured in Russian overnight drone strikes
Around11 people were injured in after a Russian Shahed drone attack on the southern city of Mykolaiv, the regional administration posted on Facebook. The strikes also damaged residential homes and cars, leaving two people in hospital.
Kyiv said Russian drones had also hit the port city of Odesa, as Moscow continued it barrage of overnight aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
“The enemy attacked Odesa region with attack drones once again,” Oleg Kiper, the regional governor, wrote on Telegram. “Energy infrastructure has been damaged and there is no electricity supply in parts of Odesa.”
Ukraine ‘hits two Russian warships in the Black Sea’
Ukraine’s military has said it destroyed two large Russian warships in the Black Sea along with other facilities used by Moscow’s navy on the annexed Crimean peninsula, writes Daniel Hardaker.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said: “The defence forces have successfully hit the Yamal and Azov landing ships, a communications centre and several infrastructure facilities belonging to the Russian Black Sea Fleet.”
A Russian-installed regional official confirmed a major Ukrainian air attack had taken place and said more than 10 missiles were shot down over the Black Sea port of Sevastopol.
Storm Shadow missiles were reportedly used in the attack, which the UK has supplied to Kyiv since May 2023.
