Russia knew about the preparation of terrorism in Crocus since February 15. Head of military intelligence of Ukraine

The Russian intelligence services knew in advance about the expected terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall, said Kirill Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

"On February 15, 2024, Russia knew about the preparations. I will tell you further that this information was transmitted from the intelligence department of the group in Syria. From there he went to Moscow, and let them not tell fairy tales that strangely it all happened out of nowhere," said Budanov, speaking at the Third International Forum of Strategic Communications.

According to the head of the General Directorate of Intelligence, the Kremlin knew where and through which two countries the militants would arrive in Russia. "Why did they allow this to happen? there are several options. The first, according to their custom, is a fight between the "towers" to remove several officials. The other option is that they actually underestimated what would happen. They thought it would be more local and wanted to blame Ukraine for everything," said Budanov.

Speaking about the "Ukrainian trace" that the Kremlin is looking for in terrorism, the head of military intelligence noted that the Russian authorities have already changed their versions of what happened in Crocus three times.

"There were explanations from Patrushev and Bortnikov, who accused me personally, and that Ukraine did all this. This is bullshit. By the way, if we touched on this painful issue, I fundamentally disapprove of terrorist actions against the civilian population," said Budanov.