Dear Readers:
In the latest news about the Crocus terrorist act, I have some random pieces from the Russian mainstream press. The FSB has reported to President Putin that they have detained 4 suspects in the Bryansk Oblast of Russia. Which is Southwest of Moscow and is also (probably not coincidentally) one of those tricky border regions near Ukraine. The number of actual killed has shot up overnight, almost as high as 100 with lots more wounded and hospitalized. It goes without saying that this was a very serious terrorist attack.
The four who were arrested were detained near the Ukrainian border, according to the official Telegram channel of the FSB. “Investigators have begun to work with them,” according to the communication.
Earlier, the FSB had announced the detention of 7 individuals, then it seems that these extra 4 came a bit later, for a total of 11 detained suspects, at this point.
According to reporter Vera Basilaya, the FSB also reported to Putin that they had uncovered a “base” that was set up to help the terrorists. This was probably the terrorist lair, and I am guessing it was in Bryansk, although the piece doesn’t say that outright.
Meanwhile, there are reports that one of the members of the rock band “Picnic” is missing, although it was earlier reported that all the band members were accounted for.
I did a bit of research on the “Picnic” band, in case they turned out to be relevant, which I am not sure they even are. Here is their English-language wiki page. In other words, their venue could have been picked randomly by the terrorists, just seeking out something that attracted the maximum number of people. My reader “ebear” would know a lot more about the Soviet/Russian pop scene than I. Frankly, I never heard of these guys before. Seems they were a typical Soviet rock band that started in 1978 and just kept on going. From what I can see, both they, and their songs, are completely apolitical. Although I did see that the Ukrainian government banned them after they performed a concert in “occupied” Crimea in 2016. So, there is that.
“We were just sitting in the dressing room…”
Reporter Eleonora Kuryumova was able to reach two Picnic members on the phone and hear their story. She talked to the bass player Marat Korchemny and the drummer, Leonid Kirnos. Kirnos was not actually there at the venue when the attack happened, by coincidence he was in the local hospital for a minor elective surgery, at the time.
Marat: “We were just getting ourselves ready to perform, like we always do. We were sitting in the dressing room. I was just getting ready to go out on the stage, when some of our (backup) musicians came running up to me. My first thought was there was some problem with the electricity, possible a short circuit, because I could start to see smoke. These kind of technical glitches happen all the time: short circuits, sparks, that sort of thing. But then I suddenly started to hear screams and gunshots. We were told to return to the dressing room and barricade ourselves inside.”
The pop stars did as they were told, and gathered together whatever furniture they could to build a barricade. After that, all they could do was just sit and wait. It must have been terrifying, because on the other side of the door they could hear the sounds of human panic, along with long cascades of automatic gunfire.
Marat again: “None of us were hurt, fortunately, and we didn’t need any medical services. Specialists are working at the scene, and we hope they will be able to help people. We are praying for those who were harmed. Unfortunately, there are many victims. The exact number is not yet known. We are not in possession of any official information.”
“At Least Two Children Were Hurt”
From reading various accounts, it does not seem like there were many children at the concert, this was probably way past their bedtime. But there were a few, as we learn from this TASS piece, and some of them were harmed as well. In Russia, there is a woman named Maria Lvova-Belova, who works directly for the Office of the President as the Ombudsman for Children’s Rights. Maria reported in a television interview that, as of that time, to her knowledge, there were at least two children who had been harmed in the event. They are in serious, but not critical, condition. One of them, a little boy, has a gunshot wound. Another one, also a boy, was struck with the butt of a machine gun.
Awful Avalanche 
reposted from b’s Moon of Alabama…
“The terrorist attack was planned at the Shaman concert on March 9. During the song ‘I am Russian,’ terrorists break into the concert of Putin’s confidant and kill hundreds of people. The perfect shot for the election.” — Холмогоров
On March 7, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issues a press release about the possibility of large-scale terrorist attacks within 48 hours, including at concerts.
➡️ On March 9, Shaman’s concert was held at Crocus City Hall.
➡️ The terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall took place on March 22.
I understand that with their statement the Americans thwarted an ideal pre-election terrorist attack, prepared by some of the European allies together with the Ukrainians.
And if the attack on March 9 had taken place – that’s when all the attempts to break through RDK and other scum into Russian territory would have made sense.”
end post. It seems to this blockhead that Shaman’s concert would have been a much more perfect terrorist target. Picnic may have been third on a match.
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Unless there’s a better source than a Twitter/X link from MoA I’ll put this in the fantasy category.
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Agree. It’s just speculation. What we need are solid facts.
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About the band ‘Picnic,’ in the context of this massacre, Zakhar Prilepin wrote:
In the 80’s and early 90’s, “Picnic “was a group that was in the shadow of “Aquarium”, “Nau”, “DDT”, “Alice” and “Kino”. They were appreciated, but not taken too seriously – …
I always loved “Picnic”, and many times went to their concerts in those (early 90’s) years-concerts were held in halls filled by 70-80 percent at best.
But the incredible thing happened.
A quarter of a century later, Picnic became a front-row group. “Picnic” surpassed Grebenshchikov and “DDT” in popularity, “Picnic” is now much more popular than Butusov. If you measure by downloads of their songs, attendance at their concerts and views of clips (up to 30 million are gaining their clips! … ) …
And although Shklarsky … does not speak out loud about what is happening – people who follow the process know that he … that he, as it is called, helps our people.
He helped, among other things, my structures, and helped generously.
I mean what.
The attack has several targets at once.
Crocus is one of the most venerable, popular and fashionable venues in the capital. This is an iconic place.
The band that was supposed to perform there – “Picnic” – is in the center of not just Russian rock music. It is at the center of the cultural front that I have unconditionally chosen – the Motherland.
— machine translated from https://t.me/zakharprilepin/21769
Notice how he says one of the band members “helps our people” including “my structures” — Prilepin is involved in forming and furnishing a Rosgvardia unit, I believe; and also runs a lot of humanitarian relief into the Donbass.
Remember that Prilepin himself had been targeted and blown up last year, though he miraculously survived (and, just received the ‘Writer of the Year’ Grand Prix, by the way).
So: the attack has several targets at once. (Well, that’s always been the MO, hasn’t it? )
And, who owns the Crocus City complex? Aras Agalarov. Who might that be? According to Wiki:
Agalarov has served as a liaison between Trump and Putin (…) they once discussed the construction of a Trump Tower in Russia. (…) In 2014, Kyrgyzstan signed a treaty with Russia that named Crocus Group as the single supplier of services to integrate into the Eurasian Economic Union …
That would mark the venue itself as being a rich secondary target for the types of people who like to plan these sorts of events. (Secondary to the obvious primary target of ‘the Putin’s regime’ itself. ) As a tertiary target, I expect SHAMAN was probably their original choice; then, for one reason or another … the Embassy warnings, increased security attention with that 48 hour period … maybe they figured: hmmmm, if we hit SHAMAN, that’s going to make the whodunnit way too obvious.
Picnic, then (seems to me), offered a nice substitute tertiary target, with a much wider cushion of deniability.
However we sleuth it, though, it is a horrible beginning to the Spring season.
I sure hope this geopolitical acid-bath we’re being drenched in will end soon.
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Thanks! This is interesting news which adds much additional content. The more I read and learn about this massacre, the more I believe this was a meticulously planned, almost like work of art of a serial killer. With many messages and many nuances, like a kind of Hannibal Lecter slaying. It is an interesting theory that Shaman was the original target, then the killers decided Picnic was almost as good.
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The Crocus City Hall massacre / arson attack certainly was well planned but it also has parallels with other past terrorist attacks in Paris (November 2015) and Manchester (May 2018), and even with the Odessa Trade Union building massacre / arson attack (May 2014). Whoever plans these attacks appears to be thumbing a manual to see what possible ideas can be taken from past attacks and combined into a new one. Then of course you add in the bit from the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015, in which the patsies lead the police on a wild goose chase (while possibly the real perpetrators make their own getaway) and ended up being killed in a siege situation – only this time, in Russia, the patsies are taken into police custody instead. (That last bit is probably not in the false-flag attack manual: what to do if the police don’t shoot you but arrest you.)
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Jen, do you think, in this case, the Tadjik “patsies” are not the real gunmen? I wondered about that, but I didn’t want to speculate too much….
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What I’ve read in some of the feeds I follow, is that the FSB had tailed the white Renault and another vehicle directly from Crocus to see where they went, if they stopped anywhere, etc., and were listening to their phone conversations the whole way. Which is what led to the other 7 individuals who were taken into custody (and, about whom we have heard nothing since … just the number: 11.)
That seems to be awfully quick work. But, FSB had been scooping up quite a few ‘cells’, making a few busts in the lead-up to the election, so they may have already collected enough info about certain networks to be able to make quick work of this one. Who knows?
The shooters themselves do indeed seem to have been expendables (if that qualifies as ‘patsies’.) Notice how the meticulous planning evident in the preparation and execution of the operation completely fell apart where it came to an escape plan (they all stuck together, didn’t even change cars.) Feels like the curators of this ‘event’ had no intention of paying out the other half of the contracts they’d made with these guys. And, I agree with Jen in thinking the curators hadn’t anticipated their expendables would be taken alive.
I also agree that their playbook has become so well-worn at this point, its various scenarios and variations-on-a-theme have become so familiar to us, that we pattern-recognizing monkeys are, as a group (or, body politic), on the cusp of that moment of enlightenment described in Kafka’s story, In the Penal Colony, where the condemned man is suddenly able to ‘read’ the ‘sentence’, which The Apparatus has been carving into his flesh.
The divide&rule experts will keep prying at ethnic/religious fault lines [..dogs barking..], while the real investigation goes on quietly and professionally in the background, starting with the interrogations of those 7 associates [..the caravan moves on..]. Threads that lead back to the actual culprits, the instigators, will be carefully prised loose from a deliberately tangled ball of yarn. If that takes years, so be it. There is no statute of limitations.
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Great comment, thanks. I particularly like the Kafka reference. To my shame, I have not read that particular story, but now I must.
Anyhow, I was watching Mercouris this afternoon, and he addresses (but does not resolve) the issue of the “wonderful planning” for part I of the operation, followed by “terrible planning” for Part II. Now, in Mission Impossible movies, the logistics experts behind the scenes always place just as much, if not more, effort, into the getaway, as the operation itself. That’s when all the operatives quickly don masks, change their clothes, and go their separate ways. In fact, having watched such movies, as well as being a fan of the Spanish series “La Casa de Papel”, I believe that I could have organized a better escape for them. I would have had extra rental cars, fully paid for and parked in advance in the lot, each perp gets his own car. Instead of heading for Bryansk, I would have ordered them to “hide in plain sight”, for example, a major 5-star hotel in downtown Moscow, a private room for each, cool heels for a few days until the heat dies down, and then discretely leave town on separate flights.
A counter-example of a well-planned escape is the assassination of Darya Dugina. That assassin got away seamlessly and has never been heard of since.
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Part II of the Crocus City Hall building operation (as in the Charlie Hebdo operation possibly as well) could actually be Part IIa and Part IIb. Part IIa, which we are familiar with, is the “terrible getaway” in which the patsies (who may or may not have participated in the shooting) make a run for it, followed by the police or security forces, while Part IIb is the “wonderful getaway” in which the real perps and planners don or throw away their masks, change their clothes and go their separate ways, Mission Impossible style.
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I fervently hope that is not the case here. It’s bad enough watching the “patsies” having the shit beat out of them and ears chopped off and so on, but what if they’re not the actual guys? Then it’s even more horrible!
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Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Jack Posibiec was correct when he said on Twitter that
https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1771679228385259898?s=20
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For some reason it has become extremely difficult to comment on WordPress the last few days.
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What do you mean? What difficulties have you been experiencing to comment? Is it the new interface where they went back to using block controls? Or something else? I wasn’t aware, sorry!
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Not your fault. I write a comment, hit post, and 45 minutes later it’s still “posting”. I copy it, refresh the page, and discover it either vanished or was posted long ago.
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Only replying from the notifications box is easy.
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We at WordPress sincerely apologize to our customers for the gross interface and the unendurable inconveniences that they are forced to suffer.
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It’s gonna be SO interesting to see how details unfold about this. How will the Russian justice system let the news emerge? I reflexively bash the U.S. system, with good reason, I posit! If the U.S. had had such an attack in New York City, would the terrorists have been captured alive, or would they have been shot all to hell like they were black kids holding a toy gun? If caught alive, would they have been disappeared into some Black Site like Guantanamo Bay, and NO news <i>(but lots of officially sanctioned rumours)</i> dribbled out? While a new totalitarian SSecurity law equivalent to the (un)Patriot Act was written up?
This is another time when I’m glad I still have access to Twaater <i>(via a Nitter work-around using some outfit called “poast.org”)</i> People there are all over the “tick-tock” of events. Doomscrolling!
Now I hope I can post this comment. As Raghead notes, WordPress has been screwy again. Not as bad as it was a few months ago. Still works on my Firefox browser.
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One thing they changed was adding the new block controls back. So you shouldn’t type the html tags manually any more, like [i] and [/i], etc. Now I have to edit your comment and remove those tags because they are not rendering any more. I have been fixing them for you the last couple of days, but I didn’t fix this one, because I wanted you to see for yourself. What you need to do (until they change it back again) is highlight your words and then click on the “Italics” control in the band above the comment. Instead of including the html tags manually. argggg…
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Thanks! I didn’t realise I was causing you extra work. I noticed one time that the HTML tags were visible after I posted, but I didn’t give it too much thought (because it’s just a comment on a blog, after all.) Just tried the new method there. Less finger-work required. I am still attached to the old way because I’ve been doing that so long. One gets accustomed to habitual patterns. By the time I get to liking THIS, what are the chances WordPress will change it again?
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The chances are very high, in my opinion.
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