US warning Russia about a terror attack doesn’t mean the US ordered it. It was the ‘duty to warn'

The attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that left Russia reeling has sparked conspiracy theories and false claims online, some of which blamed the United States as the culprit.

The March 22 attack was the deadliest terror act in Russia in two decades, leaving more than 140 people dead and dozens injured.

A branch of the Islamic State terrorist group said it carried out the attack. U.S. and western intelligence officials have said they believe the Islamic State’s claim is credible.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, have tried to tie the attack to U.S., Ukraine and western allies, without evidence. Ukrainian officials have denied involvement.

"We know the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists," Putin said. "We want to know who ordered it."

Some social media posts have echoed suspicions of U.S. involvement, citing an official warning about a possible terrorist incident about two weeks before the concert hall attack. 

One viral X post said, "The US has issued the warning on March 7th. The US knew about it because they are behind this gruesome terror attack on Russian civilians."

The March 7 security alert, published by the U.S. Embassy in Russia, is not evidence that the U.S. was involved in the attack. The U.S. was following a long-standing policy to warn other countries, even ones that are adversaries, that U.S. intelligence had found signs of an impending attack on civilians.

Other social media posts blaming the U.S. cited remarks by John Kirby, the White House National Security Council’s spokesperson. The posts claim the video is of Kirby warning about the attack earlier this month. "These lies only make them look guilty," one post on X said.

The video is a spliced version of remarks Kirby gave March 22 at the White House press briefing, which came shortly after the Moscow attack. 

The video doesn’t show his preceding statements: "First, before I go through what I had prepared to talk about, obviously, we’ve all seen the reports and the video coming out of Moscow. … I mean, this was all just breaking before I came on out here."

What did the warning say?

The U.S. embassy’s March 7 warning cautioned people to avoid large crowds over a two-day period.

"The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours," the alert on the embassy’s website said. 

The warning was passed on to Russian authorities under an existing "duty to warn" policy.

Putin dismissed the U.S. warning three days before the attack, saying it was a plot to "intimidate and destabilize our society."

What is the history of ‘duty to warn’ policies?

The U.S. policy was formalized in July 2015 under James Clapper, then the director of national intelligence.

"The duty to warn policy provides a requirement that U.S. intelligence agencies share credible intelligence they collect about threats of violence against innocent persons," Cortney Weinbaum, senior national security researcher at the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan think tank, told PolitiFact. "When the U.S. exerts this authority, it will often share the intelligence assessment without revealing any sensitive sources or methods."

The decision to share such information is up to every country; there is no "rule or principle of international law that requires a warning," said Geoffrey S. Corn, director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law.

So, why would a country share such information? The duty to warn "demonstrates that the United States takes no pleasure in the suffering of innocents, even when they are part of a nation that is considered an adversary," said Paul R. Pillar of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. "It shows the United States uses its resources to combat all terrorism, not just terrorism targeted at its own national interests."

The U.S. is not the only country with a policy like this, experts said. Egyptian officials warned Israel about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks days before it happened, according to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. (Israel denies receiving any such warning.)

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The policy does not limit the sharing of credible threats to U.S. allies. 

Besides the warning shared with Russia, the U.S. had warned Iran about the Jan. 3 bombing that killed more than 90 people in Kerman, a city south of Tehran. The same Islamic State branch that carried out the Moscow shootings claimed responsibility for that attack.

The warnings go both ways 

The U.S. has received similar warnings, too, including from Russia.

In 2011, Russian intelligence warned the U.S. government twice about the terrorist links to the Tsarnaev brothers, who bombed the Boston Marathon in 2013, according to a 2014 inspectors general report.

Experts said it is up to the host countries to act on such warnings; in the incidents in Russia and Iran, those countries do not appear to have acted, or at least not acted enough to prevent the attack. 

"For Iran and Russia, it is possible that both countries did not trust the U.S. or did not want to believe that such an attack was feasible," Weinbaum said. "​​Often when intelligence is accurate, acted on, and leads to a favorable result, the public will never know about it," she added.

The U.S. was also slow in the Boston Marathon case. The inspectors general report after that attack recommended that "the FBI consider sharing threat information with state and local partners more proactively."

Our ruling

An X post said a warning from the U.S. embassy in Russia proves the U.S. was behind the "gruesome terrorist attack on Russian civilians."

The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack in Russia.

The advance warning from the U.S. is not evidence that the U.S. was behind the attack. It was part of a "duty to warn" policy to warn other countries, even adversaries, if U.S. intelligence uncovers evidence of a pending terrorist plot targeting civilians.

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