The head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Oleksandr Bortnikov, said that he believes that Ukraine, the United States and Great Britain are involved in Friday’s attack on a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow. “We believe that the action was prepared both by Islamist radicals themselves and facilitated by Western special services. Ukrainian special services are directly connected to this,” Bortnikov said on television, saying that Ukraine helped train Islamist radicals in an unspecified location in the Middle East. He did not provide any evidence for these claims, which leaders in Moscow could use to escalate the war in Ukraine and to justify the failure of Russian intelligence services to prevent the attack, Reuters noted.

All information about the war in Ukraine – day 763 – LIVE on HotNews.ro:

07:40 Russian air defense units shot down 18 targets over the Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced on Wednesday morning. Hladkov wrote in Telegram that one person was injured, several houses and cars were damaged.

Ukraine has been carrying out air strikes on Belgorod and two neighboring regions, Kursk and Voronezh, for several months. Around 25 people are reported to have died in the largest attack on the region earlier this year. Also, a series of ground invasions took place in the Belgorod region, Reuters notes.

07:04
hotnews.ro/stiri-esential-27003800-need-to-give-or-not-an-exam-the-language-of-the-people-from-the-soviet-space-who-are-requesting-the- restoration-of-romanian-citizenship-30-000-obtain-without-an-exam. htm”>Should immigrants from the post-Soviet space, who request to re-obtain Romanian citizenship, take a language test or not? 30,000 get it a year without an exam

30:000 people annually return Romanian citizenship without a language test as victims of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The rest are given to 13,000 citizens who are obtained, including through a language exam.

07:01 R. Moldova: The Constitutional Court annuls the law that prohibits the Shor party from participating in the elections. On Tuesday, Moldova’s Constitutional Court overturned a law aimed at allowing a banned party linked to a fugitive business tycoon who supports opponents of the pro-European government to run in elections.

01:12Emmanuel Macron wants to convince Brazilian President Lula da Silva to support Ukraine. Macron is on a three-day visit to Brazil. This is the first visit of the French president in 11 years.

00:23At least 32 Ukrainian prisoners of war recently captured by Russia were executed between December 1, 2023 and February 29, 2024, according to a report released Tuesday by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

A brief summary of recent events:

• Zelensky replaced Oleksiy Danilov with the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service Oleksandr Litvinenko. On Tuesday, the President of Ukraine fired the secretary of the National Security Council and appointed him the head of foreign intelligence. After changing his position, Danilov said that “the Russian monster will be destroyed.”
• Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Schejna told RMF 24 radio on Tuesday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is considering various options, including shooting down Russian missiles when they are near NATO borders.
• Several people from Vladimir Putin’s closest circle do not believe that there is any evidence of Ukraine’s involvement in the terrorist attack near Moscow on Friday evening, writes Bloomberg with reference to anonymous sources.
• Mykola Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council and a close ally of President Putin, said that Ukraine was “definitely” behind the terrorist attack.
• Zelensky called his Russian counterpart a “sick and cynical beast” after Putin again accused Ukraine of being somehow behind Friday night’s terrorist attack.
• Russia’s response to Friday’s terror attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow has strained relations with one of its historic allies in Central Asia.
• Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday that the French government could requisition munitions and weapons factories, an exceptional measure usually used in wartime to speed up production and supplies to Ukraine’s armed forces.
• FSB director Oleksandr Bortnikov admitted that the US had warned Russia about the danger of a terrorist attack, but called this warning “general”.
• A massive Russian assault with the capture of Kharkiv is a “likely scenario”. Putin feels the desire to continue the war at any cost, and one of the possible options in the near future is a new offensive with the capture of Kharkiv, sources close to the Moscow leadership told the independent publication Meduza.
• A Russian court on Tuesday extended the pretrial detention of Evan Hershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested almost a year ago on suspicion of espionage during a documentary trip to the city of Yekaterinburg.

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• htm”>The most important information of Tuesday about the aggression of Russia was live on HotNews.ro