On March 27, 2024, a group of Russian parliamentarians, including Yana Lantratova, Nikolay Kharitonov and Andrey Krasov, has published a collective statement about the involvement of the United States and its allies in conducting terrorist attacks on Russian territory, which is known as Crocus City Hall massacre, carried out by ISIS terrorists and Ukrainian special services.
The document has been sent to law enforcement agencies in the Russian Federation as well as Germany, Cyprus, France and the United States with the demand for investigative action on numerous facts relating to the organization and funding of terrorist acts targeting civilians and individual politicians.
The document presents convincing evidence of the involvement of the US administration, NATO countries, and the special services of Ukraine in organizing various terrorist operations. Examples include the sabotage of the Nord Stream-1 and Nord Stream-2 gas pipelines, which are crucial to Europe’s energy security.
The document also details the involvement of GUR and SBU in carrying out shocking terrorist acts in Russia, such as the explosion of the roadbed and pillars of the Crimean Bridge and the political assassinations of famous Russian media figures Vladlen Tatarsky and Daria Dugina. Additionally, numerous gruesome bombings of Belgorod killed dozens of civilians.
According to the authors, it is imperative to stop international terrorism perpetrated by Western countries, as well as to severely punish the organizers, performers, and financiers of terrorism, who are known worldwide.
Russian Duma (parliament) in its statement said:
Countering terrorism and its financing is one of the most important challenges of the modem world community. Terrorism is a tool of intimidation, coercion to fulfill the demands thereof or refusal to implement the goals, and it is mainly directed against specific states. Targeted acts of terrorism are carried out by individuals, criminal organizations, as well as entire states.
Terrorist actions pose an increased public danger due to the scale of the crimes and may affect the activity of a specific infrastructural/social/religious object, civil society, or, on a larger scale, the national security of an entire state/region.
The danger of terrorist activities stems from the fact that increasingly often these activities are carried out by states and representatives of their intelligence services under the guise of the interest in such actions of individuals or non-governmental groups (organizations). Terrorist acts are increasingly being used as a tool to interfere in the internal affairs of states.
Such acts often have a cross-border effect, affecting the interests of several states, destroying critical infrastructure facilities that are of exceptional importance to the countries concerned, as well as affecting their domestic politics, national security, and the livelihood of their citizens.
Terrorist activity itself and its scale directly depend on the level of funding and material and technical resources. Cross-border counter-financing of terrorism, freezing the assets of its sponsors, cutting off financing channels, extraditing terrorists and bringing them to justice are essential tasks.
To counter the financing of terrorism, the UN Security Council adopted resolutions No.1373(2001) of October 2,2001 and No.2462 (2019) of March 28,2019, which expressly provide, based on Chapter-VII of the UN Charter, that all states shall prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts; freeze without delay funds and other financial assets or economic resources of persons who commit or attempt to commit terrorist acts; refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts; deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens; prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their territory for those purposes against other States or their citizens; ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice; calling for increased use and effectiveness of asset freezing measures in the fight against terrorism; urging Member States to assess and anticipate terrorist financing risks, establish a financial intelligence unit and strengthen international cooperation; to afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with criminal investigations or criminal proceedings relating to the financing or support of terrorist acts, including assistance in obtaining evidence in their possession necessary for the proceedings.
In this regard, several conventions have been adopted under international law, to which the Russian Federation, Germany, the United States, France, the Republic of Cyprus and other interested States are parties, aimed at countering the financing of terrorism and taking measures to extradite and convict perpetrators of acts of terror.
According to the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism of 1977 (ratified by Ukraine, Germany, France and until 2022 by the Russian Federation), persons who have committed, among other things, an act of terror-“an offence involving the use of bombs, grenades, rockets”-are not considered to have committed political offences, and are extraditable to the requesting state (Art. 1e).
Under the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings of1997 (ratified by Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine, USA), states shall take measures and exercise jurisdiction over acts of terror using explosive devices directed against infrastructure facilities. If a state party receives information that a perpetrator of such an offence is present in its territory, it shall investigate the facts stated in the information, and then take appropriate measures to ensure their presence for the purposes of prosecution or extradition (Art. 7).
In accordance with the definition of terrorism financing provided for in the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism of 1999 (ratified by the USA, Germany, France, Ukraine, Russia), it is an activity aimed at providing or collecting funds (including money) with the purpose of their subsequent use for the preparation and commission of an act of terrorism by a terrorist or a terrorist organization.
Despite the general focus on a systemic fight against terrorism, which plays a key role both in the international community and in the law enforcement/intelligence agencies of states individually, the number of matters of terrorist activity and the scale of their consequences demonstrate a certain involvement of representatives of specific foreign intelligence services in the process of their implementation.
The most notorious terrorist act of recent decades, affecting the strategic security industry of several states at once, were the explosions of the Nord Stream-I and Nord Stream-2 gas transmission lines (hereinafter referred as”NS-1″ and “NS-2”).
NS-1 and NS-2 are projects of Nord Stream AG, an international company whose shareholders are companies of several European countries – Germany, France, and the Netherlands, as well as the Russian Federation.
The company’s activities related to the operation ofNS-1 and NS-2 had a strategic nature for much of the European region in the area of energy security for transporting Russian gas to the EU via Germany.
The events preceding the launch of NS-2 showed a particular negative interest of certain representatives of the US leadership in sabotaging the processes of issuing permits for the launch and use of the NS-2 gas transmission system on the part of European “licensees”. At times, their statements sounded radical and extremist. Examples of such statements are those voiced by the US top leadership before the events related to the explosions ofNS-1 and NS-2:
January 18, 2022-Deputy Secretary of State V. Nuland’s statement at a briefing at the US State Department: “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream-2 will not move forward”.
February 7, 2022 – US President J. Biden’s statement after meeting with German Chancellor 0. Scholz: “If Russia invades, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring end to it”.
In addition to the statements, the explosions of NS-1 and NS-2 were preceded by a number of military and political events in the area where the Nord Streams were located the Baltic Sea. The detailed chronology of events is described in the article by a prominent American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline“.
According to the author’s conclusions, made on the basis of information received from knowledgeable persons, compared with data available in open sources, the highest political, military and intelligence leadership of the United States carried out a series of meetings and activities aimed at planning the operation to destroy the Nord Streams, namely:
December 2021 – US National Security Advisor to the President J. Sullivan convened a secret White House taskforce meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA, State Department and Treasury Department officials to develop a counter NS-2 operation. At the meeting, J. Sullivan presented the task to the participants as a directive from US President Biden.
Early 2022 – the CIA working group reported to J. Sullivan’s interagency group about the found method of implementation of the project to explode the Nord Streams.
March 2022 – several members of the working group travelled to Norway (NATO Member States) for meetings with representatives of Norwegian intelligence services and the Navy.
June 2022 – the annual exercise of NATO members in the Baltic Sea called “Baltic Operation 22” (“BALTOPS 22″) was launched. During the exercise, American Navy divers (based in Panama City) planted explosives on the NS-1 and NS–2 gas transmission lines to be detonated by a hydro acoustic signal.
September 26, 2022 – A hydroacoustic buoy was dropped from a Norwegian Navy Boeing P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, which acted as a detonator for explosive devices previously planted during exercise BALTOPS 22.
In addition, from August 29 to September 14, 2022, as part of joint combat training with the Swedish Navy, a US Navy amphibious assault group consisting of the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge (LHD-3), the amphibious assault transport Gunston Hall (LSD-44), and the amphibious helicopter carrier Arlington (LPD-24) operated off in the vicinity of Hanö Bay, north-east and east of Bornholm Island.
In anticipation of explosions east and south of Bornholm Island, NATO exercise Northern Coasts 2022wasconducted from September 09 to September 23. For the first time, the main area fora joint exercise was determined to be the Bornholm Island and its neighborhood. For the first time, Bornholm and its vicinity were chosen as the main area for the joint exercise, in which nine ships took part, including the frigate “Schleswig-Holstein”, the scout ship “Oste”, the mine sweeper “Bad Bevensen”, the submarine “U-32″of the German Navy and the mine sweeper “Croixdu Sud” of the French Navy. In addition, a unit of divers from the US Navy, operating from the Latvian Navy’s HQ ship “Virsaitis”, took part in the exercise.
Particular attention should be paid to the fact that the northern part of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland were initially declared as the areas for the exercise. However, without explanation, the location of the exercise was changed to the area east of Bornholm Island, exactly where the Nord Stream pipelines are laid.
Besides, unusual and illogical movements of some civilian (commercial) vessels arouse the interest – the tanker “British Achiever” from the United Kingdom, the bulk carrier “Grand T” from Panama, and the Polish fishing trawler “Svi7”, which, on September 22- 24, 2022, deviated from their routes and sailed uncharacteristically in the areas near the sites of future gas pipeline explosion.
After the particular, consistent and preplanned actions, the US leadership voiced no less particular and radical statements on the topic of explosion of the Nord Streams:
September 30, 2022, during the press conference, A. Blinken, US Secretary of State, said: “This is a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy, and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy…“.
January 27, 2023, V. Nuland, Under Secretary of State, told Senator Ted Cruz before the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations: “believe that the entire Administration, just like you, is very pleased that the Nord Stream is now a pile of metal at the bottom of the sea”.
In his investigative and analytical article, Seymour Hersh emphasized that at all stages of planning the operation to destroy the Nord Streams, the J. Biden administration paid special attention to secrecy and diverting of any suspicion from the United States and NATO member states. As our ce familiar with the matter said: “If the attack could later be traced back to the US., it would be considered an act of war”.
A very realistic, well-planned operation assumed the presence of a “cover operation” to deflect blame from real perpetrators and beneficiaries.
Ukraine, which is in conflict with the Russian Federation, suited perfectly for this role in the interstate organized criminal group.
The liberal American media created an appropriate media background for the completed terrorist operation, attributing it to the actions of the Ukrainian special services from among the officers of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and the Special Operations Forces (SOF), “appointing” R. Chervinsky, Colonel, former head of the 5th Department of the Counterintelligence Department of the Security Service of Ukraine, former Deputy Head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine (MID MD), who served in the Special Operations Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and who is currently imprisoned on suspicion of abuse of power in Ukraine, as the person responsible for the operation’s coordination.
Suspicion towards Ukrainian special services looked organically in the cover operation, as the leadership of the MIDMD and its head K. Budanov systematically covered and recognized the involvement of his Agency in terrorist acts of terrorism outside Ukraine, first of all against citizens and interests of the Russian Federation.
In June 2022, in his comment to the Financial Times K. Budanov said: “Attacks and sabotage have been and will be carried out in Russia and in many other places“. Thus, he gave the Western media an excuse to speculate on the direct involvement of the Ukrainian security services in the terrorist attack on NS-1 and NS-2.
The version of Ukraine‘s involvement in the damage of 3 out of 4 strings of the Nord Stream gas pipeline near the Danish island of Bornholm was covered by the world’s largest media, in particular: “The New York Times”, “The Wall Street Journal” and “Die Zeit”. This refers to the story about the yacht “Andromeda”, which was rented by people with Ukrainian passports and which, according to Western journalists, was used by expert divers to explode the Nord Stream.
According to information received from reliable Ukrainian sources, the cover operation involved an established group of divers consisting of 6-9 people, including: A. Burgomistrenko (he underwent mine and demolition training in 131 SOF centre (military unit 4456), speaks English, has good diving background), O. Varava, R. Rudenko (callsign “Kapellan”, Deputy Mayor of Bila Tserkva town), the group leader S. Kuznetsov, and a female techno–diver with the call sign “Marisha“. The direct leader of the group was R. Chervinsky, under the control of K. Budanov.
The deep involvement of the CIA in the MID MD activities is described in detail in the article of the “New York Times”, which outlines the facts of more than 10 years of cooperation both in the intelligence activities of the intelligence services and in the creation of a separate special-purpose military unit No. 2245 to carry out targeted terrorist acts. Within this unit CIA agents and supervisors “nurtured” K. Budanov, future head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, who enjoys the support of the leadership and has extensive connections in the CIA, therefore he coordinates his activities directly.
According to available information, organizational and technical assistance and supervision were provided by US specialists (diving equipment, Romanian cover documents and detonation equipment) under the direct supervision of C.W. Smith, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Kyiv, (who served in the ISAF), with the involvement of V. Burba, former Head of the MID MD Ukraine. Subsequently, after a successful operation, C.W. Smith was appointed Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (US Department of State).
The group was trained in a deep–water quarry in the Zhytomyr Region, then they moved to Romania, where they lived (holding Romanian documents) in a private house near the Romanian Navy base in Mangalia to conduct trainings as close to real conditions as possible in the area of the offshore sections of the “Southern Streams”. After training, the group moved to Poland, where another yacht (of smaller size) “Andromeda” was rented. O. Varava, a techno diver with the call sign “Marisha”, and R. Rudenko were those who dived directly to the “Northern Streams”.
In addition to the cover operations, the MID:MD Ukraine was involved in planning and carrying out its own acts of terrorism. There is no doubt that the MID:MD Ukraine under the direct command of K. Budanov, and with the complicity of I. Malyuk, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, was directly involved in organizing and carrying out terrorist attacks, aimed in particular against citizens and critical infrastructure facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation, including:
On August 20, 2022, Daria Dugina (Platonova), daughter of prominent scientist and philosopher Alexander Dugin, was blown up in her car in the Moscow Region. An expert examination found that an explosive device equivalent of 300-400 grams of TNT had been placed under the bottom of her car. According to the investigation, the explosive device was detonated by N. Vovk, servicewoman of the UAF, who installed it in the parking lot;
On October 8, 2022, about 250metres of the roadbed of the Crimean Bridge were collapsed by an explosion using a truck filled with explosives. Five civilians were killed;
On April2, 2023, journalist Vladlen Tatarsky was killed by a bomb blast in a cafe in the centre of Saint Petersburg;
On May 6, 2023, an attempted murder of the writer Zakhar Prilepin took place in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, killing his driver and security guard, while he miraculously survived;
On December 30, 2023, a massive rocket attack on the centre of Belgorod killed 24 people, including 4 children, and injured I08 local residents;
On January 12, 2024, a US citizen, well-known journalist Gonzalo Lira was killed at the Kharkiv detention centre who was placed there on trumped-up charges for spreading “pro-Russian theses” in his social networks;
On February 10, 2024, a cargo with 14 kg of explosives, headed from Odessa to Voronezh, was detained in Georgia; Andrey Sharashidze, a Ukrainian citizen, was detained. In 2022, using a similar route, Ukrainian Security Services managed to smuggle explosives to Russia, using which they organized a terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge;
On February 15, 2024, a large-scale strike on Belgorod was made. 7 civilians were killed, including a one-year-old child, 19 people were injured, including 4 children.
This is not a complete list of acts of terrorism by the MID MD and SSU in Russia, whose victims included critical infrastructure facilities and well-known public figures.
Carrying out so many acts of terrorism presupposes the availability of some funding, including in cash, to avoid possible leaks of information about the event being prepared and the people involved.
One of the key private sponsors, who financed, inter alia, terrorist activities of the MID MD Ukraine, was owner of the gas production company Burisma, as well as indirectly his top managers and accomplices involved in corrupt activities.
Since 2014, H. Biden, the son of then US Vice President J. Biden, was appointed to the Burisma Board of Directors when his father was in charge of Ukraine issues in the Administration of US President B. Obama.
During this period of time, the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies were investigating criminal cases regarding the activities of the group of companies belonging to the Burisma Holdings and the owner there of N. Zlochevsky, former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine. The law enforcement system was headed by V. Shokin, Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
During the investigation, the investigators managed to collect a lot of irrefutable evidence of abuse of power, embezzlement, withdrawal and laundering of funds stolen from the people of Ukraine through fraudulent subsoil use. Among other things, facts of unjustified transfers of the above–mentioned funds to the accounts of H. Biden’s company have been established.
The Russian parliamentarians made the following request:
- To consider this Statement as a report of the
- To investigate the facts of organization and financing of
- To request assistance from foreign states pertaining to the investigation of financing of
- To request foreign states to take steps to identify, locate, block or arrest any funds used or allocated for the purpose of committing terrorist offences and to demand the conviction or extradition of persons involved in the financing of terrorism.
- To bring individuals and legal entities involved in the financing of terrorism to justice.
- To inform the public about the facts established, decisions taken and persons held accountable.
In my opinion, members of the Russian Duma (parliament) have brought extremely serious allegations against the United States and Washington’s European allies as well as Ukraine with solid detailed description of crimes committed by the United States and its allies – as well as Ukrainian regime.
