Newly elected MP George Galloway accused Britain of complicity in last week’s terror attack in Moscow in comments cited in a Kremlin-linked newspaper.

The Rochdale MP was quoted as saying by Russian government-published newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta that the United States and Britain had lied about Islamic State’s involvement in the attack, which killed 139 people and injured 360 others.

The month after Mr Galloway returned to parliament was described as a “dark day” for Britain’s Jewish community, he endorsed conspiracy theories surrounding the Princess of Wales’ death and compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

Lawmakers blasted his intervention as irresponsible, reckless and playing into the hands of the Kremlin, while a foreign ministry spokesman called it “nonsense”.

An article in a Russian newspaper quoted Mr Galloway as saying: “When the US, UK and other countries quickly assured me that only ISIS (banned in the Russian Federation) had carried out this massacre in Moscow, I naturally Realize they are lying.

“Here’s what I found: First, no one has ever explained why former President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Downing Street to meet with British politicians and security officials three days before this horrific crime.

“Researching further, I discovered that Victoria Nuland (a former senior U.S. diplomat), this harbinger of death, this angel of death, if she came near you, you could be sure that a civil war was about to happen in your country. She promised the Russians that they would There will be some unpleasant surprises for Russia in the coming weeks and months.”

The article stated that Mr. Galloway claimed to have “four pieces of evidence that lead me to believe that the United States, its NATO allies and its puppet state Ukraine are actually responsible for this massacre.”

Mr Galloway’s press spokesman declined to comment for this article.

The freshman lawmaker’s comments were consistent with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s false claims that Ukraine was somehow responsible for the attack, although there is no evidence of this.

Western analysts warn that Putin has a history of using terrorist attacks to justify aggressive wars and is likely planning to do the same with the recent events in Moscow.

The remarks sparked a flurry of criticism from lawmakers.

Tobias Ellwood, former chairman of the parliamentary defense committee, said the claims were irresponsible and reckless: “While his words would be quickly dismissed as a typical far-fetched, factually incorrect rant, Moscow will exploit this to spin their own domestic narrative that NATO is to blame.

“Galloway’s comments were not only irresponsible, they were reckless.”

Conservative Bob Seely, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said he “completely disagreed” with Mr Galloway’s assertions. He added: “There is absolutely no evidence that the US, UK, Ukraine or NATO were in any way responsible and sadly this wild speculation plays into the hands of the Kremlin and will be used to support this absolute fiction.” claim. ”

Senior Conservative MP Henry Smith added that it was outrageous that a British MP “claimed this was an act of NATO waving the flag for Russia”.

Despite attempts to pin the blame on Ukraine, two days after the attacks Putin acknowledged that radical Islamic terrorists were responsible for the killings, but added: “Now we want to know who ordered it.”

The article included Mr Galloway’s outrageous claims, which quoted Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov in an attempt to link Ukraine to the attack. Get in touch.

In this article, Patrushev responded to the question of whether the Islamic State or Ukraine was responsible for the Moscow attack. “Of course it’s Ukraine,” Patrushev said, without providing evidence. The article then quoted Russian Federal Security Service Director Bortnikov’s remarks, saying that Ukrainian special forces have been training terrorists in the Middle East, but did not provide evidence.

A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later accused Patrushev and Bortnikov of “officially spreading lies.”

Islamic State claimed responsibility for last Friday’s attack on Krokus City Hall, a claim also confirmed by the United States, Britain, Ukraine and several other Western countries.

Multiple counterintelligence analysts also told The Independent that the attack bore all the hallmarks of Islamic State, an offshoot of the terror group that has a large presence in Tajikistan and is responsible for all four suspected gunmen. nationality.

Mr Galloway controversially returned to parliament this month after winning the Rochdale by-election, with Labor forced to abandon its candidate. After the game, the House Committee on British Jewry condemned Mr Galloway’s victory, calling it a “dark day” for Britain’s Jewish community, while Rishi Sunak warned that democracy was under attack from the far right and Islamist extremists attack.

The prime minister said it was “shocking” that voters would support a candidate who “shut down the horrors” of October 7, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel.

Mr Galloway was a Labor MP until he was expelled in 2003 for opposing the invasion of Iraq. His independence campaign in Rochdale focused on the war in Gaza, which has been bombing and blockading Gaza for nearly six months after terrorist attacks in Israel killed around 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. The goal is to eliminate Hamas.

More than 32,000 Palestinians died in subsequent Israeli attacks, according to health officials in Hamas-controlled areas.

Seeing the Rochdale by-election as an opportunity to send a message of support to those inside Gaza, Mr Galloway declared after winning the contest: “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza.”

But Mr Galloway has been absent from many House of Commons debates on the conflict since his election. He has long been critical of NATO and has called for Britain to withdraw from the military alliance.

He has also been repeatedly accused of spreading conspiracy theories, including most recently speculation that the Princess of Wales was “dead” and the April 2022 Russian massacre of civilians in Bucha, north of Kiev. Probably staged.

Months after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Galloway threatened to sue Twitter after the social network labeled his account as “Russian state-affiliated media.”

Mr. Galloway’s radio show, “The Mother of All Talk Shows,” was broadcast on Russia’s state-owned Sputnik service in the early months of the invasion. He said he would sue Twitter for defamation if it did not remove the label.

“I do not work for any Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I am the leader of a political party in the UK and have served in the UK Parliament for almost 30 years,” he wrote on Twitter at the time.