The US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, issued an unusual diplomatic statement late Friday, rejecting the Russian government’s claims about information the United States provided to Moscow before last week’s terrorist attack on a concert hall, on the outskirts of the capital, where over 140 people were killed.
Tracy said some Russian officials “misrepresented and publicly dismissed” the usefulness of information the U.S. passed on to Russian security services earlier this month about threats from the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack in Moscow.
In the communiqué, Tracy reiterates that the information was exchanged in a written and very specific, reliable and timely manner. She said the U.S. provided this information through “the long-standing ‘duty to warn’ policy,” which allows information to be shared when there is a threat to innocent civilians. This is a practice that the US follows not only with allied countries, but also with “countries with which we may have deep disagreements, including Russia,” she said.
She added that the United States will continue to share information and will also “continue to respond” to the Russian government’s requests for assistance in connection with the investigation into the terrorist attack on the Crocus concert hall. The US State Department (Dash) said on Friday that Washington had “shared clear and timely information with Russian authorities to help prevent the attack and save innocent lives”.
DASH spokesman Matthew Miller said Russia’s attempts to shift the blame to others are “absurd”. On March 26, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, repeated President Vladimir Putin’s claims that not only Ukraine, but also the West had a hand in the deadly attack. Without providing any evidence, Bortnikov claimed that Western spy agencies may have been involved in the attack as well, despite acknowledging that he had received information from the United States in early March about a possible terrorist attack.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack several times, while the United States and other Western governments have said it is “very clear” that the Islamic State is solely responsible for the attack.
