The US informed Russia that Crocus City Hall was a possible target of the attack

According to American officials familiar with the situation, more than two weeks before the terrorists staged a bloody attack in the suburbs of Moscow, the US government informed Russian officials that the popular concert venue Crocus City Hall was a potential target. This is stated in the article "U.S. told Russia that Crocus City Hall was possible target of attack" by The Washington Post on April 2.

The author of the article, Shane Harris, a reporter for the Intelligence and National Security Division, writes that the high degree of specificity expressed in the warning underscores Washington's confidence that the Islamic State was preparing an attack that threatened a large number of civilians, and this directly contradicts Moscow's claims that the US warnings were too general. to help prevent an attack.

The fact that the United States has identified the Crocus Concert Hall as a potential target — a fact that has not been previously reported — raises new questions about why the Russian authorities did not take more drastic measures to protect the venue, where armed men killed more than 140 people and set fire to the building. A branch of the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack, which became the deadliest in Russia over the past 20 years. U.S. officials have publicly stated that the group known as the Islamic State of Khorasan, or ISIS-K, "bears sole responsibility," but Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to pin the blame on Ukraine.

The attack further undermined the image of strength and security that the Russian leader seeks to create and exposed fundamental flaws in the national security system, which has been undermined by more than two years of war in Ukraine. According to analysts and observers of Russian politics, Putin's agents inside the country seem to be more concerned with suppressing political dissent and opposition to the president than rooting out terrorist plots.

U.S. officials familiar with the information Washington shared with Moscow spoke on condition of anonymity about confidential conversations and intelligence. A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment on this story. Earlier, the NSC admitted that the United States had passed on information “about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow,” but did not say that Crocus City Hall had been named as a possible target.

A Kremlin spokesman did not respond to questions from The Washington Post about the Crocus City Hall warning. But on Tuesday, the head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, told reporters in Moscow that the information shared by the United States was “too general and did not allow us to fully identify those who committed this terrible crime,” the state-run Interfax news agency reported.

Naryshkin said that in response to the US intelligence data, Russia “took appropriate measures to prevent” the attack. However, the video from the scene of the massacre shows that the militants did not meet significant resistance. Russian media reported that specialized police units arrived more than an hour after the shooting began, and then waited for more than 30 minutes before entering the building, by which time the attackers had already fled.

Former Soviet intelligence officer Yuri Shvets, who lives in the United States, said on his YouTube channel in the program number 709 that most likely information about the impending attack was transmitted to Russian special services, including Crocus co-owner Emin Agalarov on March 6.  On March 8, unprecedented security measures were taken in Crocus, which scared the terrorists away from the original plan to strike on the March 8 holiday.

Islam Khalilov, 15, who said that on the night of the attack he worked in the clothing inspection department at the concert hall, said that the staff of Crocus was warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack shortly after the public warning on March 7. “We were warned that there could be terrorist attacks and instructed what to do and where to take people,” Khalilov said in an interview with famous Russian sports journalist Dmitry Egorov, which was posted on YouTube. Khalilov said that security measures had been strengthened at the venue, including the involvement of trained dogs.

The repeated warning was ignored by the Kremlin. Putin publicly rejected the U.S. warnings just three days before the March 22 attack, calling them “outright blackmail“ and attempts to ”intimidate and destabilize our society."

Why security measures were not strengthened and maintained after the initial warning remains unclear, asks Shane Harris.

In the past, Russia has gratefully accepted help from the United States. Twice during the administration of President Donald Trump, Putin thanked the Americans for sharing information that helped prevent terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg in 2017 and 2019.