#Russia usually debunks itself first (as it was the case with #MH17) but in this case it was #Belarus allies who did that for them[^1]
Belarusian special services helped Russia to prevent terrorists from escaping across the border against the background of the terrorist attack in “Crocus City Hall,” said Ambassador of Belarus to Russia Dmitri Krutoy. About it writes “Belta”. “And in fact, the main task of last night was to prevent the terrorists from escaping through our common border,” he said, noting that the task was fulfilled.
Note, this comes right after today’s Putin’s statement in which he declared the terrorists were fleeing “towards Ukraine where a special window was opened for them”.
What Belarus did is notable: they just publicly refuted Putin’s words, in a diplomatic way.
Background: the first message about detaining the Tadjiks in Bryansk oblast was posted by “Baza” channel[^2] which quoted Teplyyi village (Тёплый) as the place where they were stopped (first picture). It’s 16 km from Belarus border, but it’s over ~200 km from #Ukraine and in the opposite direction.
Then another message followed, mentioning a completely different place of detention - Khatsun(Хацунь) near Bryansk, ~100 km from Belarus but still ~200 km from Ukraine. The main difference is that while Teplyyi is a complete nonsense in the “Ukrainian version”, Khatsun is less of a nonsense - it’s still a stretch, but at least plausible as it has a main road going towards Ukraine.
Putin’s reaction seems quite understandable now: last night he prepared a public statement which was likely to blame ISIS, the real perpetrators. Then however he and his advisors decided to capitalize on this attack differently, by blaming ISIS and Ukraine at the same time. Any actual evidence doesn’t matter really for Kremlin and Russian audience, it’s just question of amount of propaganda.
@m0xee
I think what Putin did could have been too much even for Lukashenko, which explains the statement by Krutoi.