Moscow concert hall attackers first headed for Belarus, says Lukashenko, contradicting Putin

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that the gunmen who attacked Moscow’s Crocus City Hall music venue on Friday tried initially to flee to Belarus, not Ukraine as Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin have insisted.

Putin said Ukraine had prepared a “window” for the attackers to cross the border – currently a war zone.

Ukraine has vehemently denied involvement but two of Putin’s most powerful allies, Security Council chairman Nikolai Patrushev and state Federal Security Service (FSB) head Alexander Bortnikov, on Tuesday both directly blamed Kyiv for the attack, albeit without producing any evidence.

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However Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, told journalists that Belarusian and Russian security services had coordinated their actions as the suspects’ car fled southwest from Moscow to the Bryansk region, bordering both Ukraine and Belarus, where it was apprehended.

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Беларусь Политика