Kremlin says U.S. tip-off helped Russia halt terrorist attack

[demmiblue]

Source: Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday to thank him for a tip-off that helped prevent a terrorist bomb attack on a cathedral in the Russia city of St Petersburg, the Kremlin said.

Information provided by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) allowed Russian law-enforcement agencies to arrest the would-be attackers before they could carry out their plan, the Kremlin said in a statement posted on its Internet site.

A senior Trump administration official confirmed Trump and Putin had spoken on Sunday. However, there was no immediate confirmation from U.S. authorities that they had shared the intelligence with Russian officials.

The foiled attack was to have been carried out on Kazansky Cathedral, in Russia’s second city of St Petersburg, and on other locations in the city where large numbers of people gather, the Kremlin statement said. The cathedral is a popular tourist site.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-intelligence/kremlin-says-u-s-tip-off-helped-russia-halt-terrorist-attack-idUSKBN1EB0NK?il=0

---

Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked President Trump during a call on Sunday for information that helped stop a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

Putin asked Trump to thank the director of the CIA and agency operatives, according to the report, which cited the Kremlin.

The Russian president also assured Trump that Russian intelligence would immediately pass on any information it obtains on terrorist threats against the U.S., Interfax added.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/365330-putin-thanks-trump-for-tip-that-prevented-terror-attack-report

[Irish_Dem]

1. So glad my tax dollars are helping Putin. nt

[xor]

31. Well, if this actually did prevent a terrorist attack that would have killed innocent people

then we really should be glad regardless of who has power in either country.

[Irish_Dem]

33. Good point. nt

[padah513]

2. Let me see if I got this straight

Trump doesn't believe it when our intelligence agencies say some bad about Russia, but he believes them good enough to inform Russia when they might be attacked. Am I missing something here?

[Cryptoad]

13. Welcome to DU,,,,,Comrade!

[yuiyoshida]

29. I WONDER how his base will feel when they have to learn the Russian Language.

[Frustratedlady]

3. Is this staged/fake to make Trump/Putin look as though they care,

or real? They could easily put out false information to make the CIA believe it was for real. As you notice, my first reaction to anything from Trump/Putin would be that it is a lie. Imagine that.

[fountainofyouth]

4. It wasn't Trump who gave the tip, of course

It was the intelligence agencies Trump despises so much. The "Deep State" makes the boss look good, but the boss will take credit.

[Sneederbunk]

5. +1

[ToxMarz]

16. Trump doesn't believe the intelligence community

I wonder what he'll say when they corroborate the "dossier". I hope Putty Poot gives him a shout out then (and does a little "I did this" dance.

[xor]

32. Easy there, you're gonna make some heads on the right explode

It is interesting how the White House/Trump words these sorts of things. It's always sure to mention Trump and to make it sound as if he had personal hand in it all. Very similar to the North Korean style. Whereas before I recall these sorts of reports being more generalized about how the US offered a tip-off with little mention of the president making the phone call. I suppose my dislike for Trump could be causing me to be a bit more harsh, but I don't think so. I wasn't fan of Bush, but I never noticed them doing this. Yet it's pretty common with the Trump administration.

[kimbutgar]

6. My bs detector is going off on this story

[Marie Marie]

9. Mine too!

[bluestarone]

12. mine too

i say BULLSHIT

[demmiblue]

17. Yep. n/t

[fountainofyouth]

20. What's not believable about the story?

Intelligence agencies give tip-offs to foreign countries about terrorist attacks all the time. Even adversarial ones. Russian intelligence gave us a tip about Tamerlan Tsarnaev that was mishandled.

[kimbutgar]

24. Suspious timing

Mueller is breathing down twitlers neck about Russian interence in our elections and then after twitler talks to putin on Friday putin comes out and makes these remarks. And RT which is the propaganda channel for Putin reports it. Coincidence or possible bs?

[fountainofyouth]

25. And what wouldn't pass as "suspicious timing" in 2017?

Trump/Russia has been the top story this entire year.

[underpants]

7. A. Good job CIA. B. These dumbasses don't realize they are keeping "Putin...Trump" in the news

Vlad is playing him like a harmonica

[Leghorn21]

8. Hand in hand, defeating terror across the universe! What a cozy pair these two are, eh?

From August 2016:

I believe that Vladimir Putin came to power as the result of an act of terror committed against his own people. The evidence is overwhelming that the apartment-house bombings in 1999 in Moscow, Buinaksk, and Volgodonsk, which provided a pretext for the second Chechen war and catapulted Putin into the presidency, were carried out by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Yet, to this day, an indifferent world has made little attempt to grasp the significance of what was the greatest political provocation since the burning of the Reichstag.

I have been trying to call attention to the facts behind the bombings since 1999. I consider this a moral obligation, because ignoring the fact that a man in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal came to power through an act of terror is highly dangerous in itself.

Russian human-rights defenders Sergei Yushenkov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, and Alexander Litvinenko also worked to shed light on the apartment bombings. But all of them were murdered between 2003 and 2006. By 2007, when I testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the bombings, I was the only person publicly accusing the regime of responsibility who had not been killed.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439060/vladimir-putin-1999-russian-apartment-house-bombings-was-putin-responsible

Just, you know...fuck off

[Igel]

10. So do you agree with Satter?

The problem being that Eltsyn was not that popular in 1999, not by a long-shot, and probably wouldn't have won. So the cause that must be true because of its effect, catapulting Putin to victory, almost certainly wasn't necessary for the effect that justifies its primary claim to truth. Not everybody who benefits from an act is responsible for the act. Cui bono? is a nice way to produce a hypothesis, but it's far, far from anything like evidence. (I'd note that at the time the 'Putin did it' narrative was actively used primarily by those defending Muslims. If the FSB did it, then Muslim Chechens and Ossetes were still pure victims, and for some that was a status necessary to defend. But that's irrelevant.)


Now, Eltsyn presided over a period of Russian history that had a lot of bad in it, but by the end he'd achieved a level of corruption lower than under Brezhnev, a bit of fiscal sanity (let's not push that too far) and had managed to make peace so that Russia wouldn't necessarily have to rely on rabid xenophobia for growth. Of course, unemployment's a lagging indicator so the fact that by Putin's installation unemployment was starting a steep decline was missed by most people, and the implication studiously overlooked by Putin's admin and ad men. He'd also presided over a lot of decentralization. That both pissed off the FSB but let a lot of subversive and illegal activity occur.

It's easy to be anti-Putin if you're in the US and with few serious connections to Russia. I have been since 1999. Consistently. Through "looking into his soul" and through "reset" and through "Russia's not a foe", I considered those who said each of those things to be blind fools for saying them. I came under fire for it from self-professed "critical thinkers" who reflexively sided against Bush II and in favor of HRC or Obama, but it's the Internet and I feel no special need to be liked by strangers. I'm still in the same outsider camp because under the new "collusion" required tenet of faith. I feel no pressure to conform, just the spiral of silence to not offend by stating the obvious.

However, if you were outspoken enough about being anti-Putin and you had any currency with any circles within Russia, you died. Some of those claimed Putin was somehow behind the apt. bombings fell into this group. Satter flips it and tries to say that because some of those in that group died after accusing Putin of the bombings, therefore it happened because of that accusation. That doesn't follow. It's a reason neither necessary nor adequate to account for all the deaths, even though it might be a contributing factor in some. Then again, as a contributing factor it still need not be a true accusation.

"X accused me publicly and is creating a political PR problem. He must die."
"But sir, you can't kill him because the accusations aren't true."
"Oh, well, then, I guess there isn't a problem that needs to be fixed, is there? Send him a box of candy and the keys to a new yacht instead, shall we?"

[Leghorn21]

19. Igel, thank you for this thoughtful post - oh, you sure know a helluva lot more than I ever

will, no question.

So, yes, Mr. Satter seems to know what he is talking about here, but then you say,

"Satter flips it and tries to say that because some of those in that group died after accusing Putin of the bombings, therefore it happened because of that accusation. That doesn't follow. It's a reason neither necessary nor adequate to account for all the deaths, even though it might be a contributing factor in some".

...and apparently the best I can do here is listen up to what you are saying, as your experience far, far supersedes my understanding of those horrific bombings -

Thank you!

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Lovey-Dovey Fake News

currying sympathy with the American public

[Cryptoad]

14. Don the Con is telling Putin all and anything ,,,

he wants to know abt our intell.......
High, Treason,,,,,,,,!

[bluestarone]

15. And if true what do we get in return?

fuck up our election! kill our poor! invade poor countries! fuck us with FALSE NEWS!! and ON AND ON AND ON!!

[yuiyoshida]

30. I FEEL ya,..

I am hating this PRESIDENT with each day that passes and the Republican party can all be sent straight to hell.

[jO456]

18. If we help stop a terrorist attack

I dont care who takes credit, if innocent people are alive.

[Oneironaut]

28. I agree

[Miigwech]

21. trump and putin are getting so bro-ish, maybe they can schedule a sleep over

or family vacation together

[demmiblue]

22. Readout of the call:

Link to tweet

[pecosbob]

23. Doesn't surprise me

Staging and capitalizing on terrorist acts is what brought Putin to power.

[Pachamama]

26. +1000

Indeed....

[BlueIdaho]

27. Bullshit.

No way I trust Putin on this or anything. This is crap invented to help Putin’s operative in the White House pure and simple.