Moscow Concert Attack: U.S. Dismisses Russian Accusations As 'Propaganda To Justify Aggression Against Ukraine'

The United States on Tuesday dismissed the accusations from Russian officials that the Western countries, including Ukraine, were somehow involved in the attack on a concert hall just outside Moscow that killed at least 139 people, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"it’s simply not true. We’ve made it clear that there is no evidence at all that Ukraine was involved in this, because Ukraine was not involved in this," State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller told TURAN's correspondent during daily briefing.

Alexander Bortnikov, the director of Russia's most powerful security agency FSB was quoted as saying Tuesday morning that Moscow believed the terror action "was prepared by both the Islamist radicals themselves and was facilitated by Western special services."

"I would say that those comments by Russian officials, including from President Putin, are just propaganda to justify their continued aggression against Ukraine," Miller said.

The spokesperson's comments came as Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke about the ISIS threat Tuesday morning.

"Despite the very good work that we’ve done over the years in dealing with that threat and mitigating it significantly, we’re reminded by the horrific attack outside of Moscow just a few days ago that ISIS remains a potentially potent force and one that we have to continue to deal with," Blinken told his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein during a meeting at the State Department. 

"We mourn the loss of so many innocent lives, people going to a concert outside of Moscow.  This is a very unfortunate reminder that we have to continue to deal with ISIS and make sure that it doesn’t revive and regenerate," Blinken said.