Comment: As project Ukraine is collapsing, the US tries to make sure that the EU will stay depressed too and only get expensive gas from the US. Such a malevolent plan will undoubtedly fail too, though it gives in the process, the citizens of the EU yet another chance to see that the US deep state is not their friend.

Comment: 'A mass assassination factory': How Israel is using AI in its calculated genocide in Gaza

Comment:

• Trump demands judge recuse himself from DA Bragg case
• Judge overseeing Trump case could face ethics investigation

Comment: Looks like Israel's legendary 'deterrence' strategy is wearing thin. Hezabollah to the north, Iraqi militias to the east, Houthis to the south, and a determined Hamas within it's own "borders". How long will the Zionist entity be able to hold out?

Comment: Russia stepped in at Zaporozhye as soon as it could after the start of the SMO, to make sure the neonazi crazies running Ukraine wouldn't be able to do something stupid. But they are still trying it seems.

• Ukraine seeks to engineer nuclear disaster - Russia
• Russia building protective dome at Europe's largest nuclear plant following repeated attack by Ukraine
• UN thanks Russia for keeping nuclear team safe during Ukrainian attack on Zaporozhye nuclear power plant

Comment: France has been behaving most strangely recently and despite all the problems which France faces domestically, it seems to be happy to distract such issues by picking a fight outside of its borders.

See also:

• France preparing deployment of 1,500 Foreign Legion to Ukraine in April — Russia
• Blow to France: Senegal opposition candidate Faye won 54 percent in presidential vote
• France: Senators call for ban on gender transition for minors, 'one of the greatest ethical scandals in history of medicine'
• France's megalomaniac Macron is gambling with world peace
• Incurable affliction of the nervous system? France all dressed up and nowhere to go

Comment:

1) Perhaps the retirement of Victoria Nuland was due to health reasons. Apart from ageing, she might have lost health since she handed out cookies in Ukraine around 2014. If that is the case, spinning stories around her departure giving other reasons could become a wild goose chase, without excluding the possibility that using this explanation as a prop in another explanation may serendipitously lead to correct ideas.

2) It is often helpful to review what has already been published and suggested, when considering alternative explanations. Below is a list of articles found by searching for articles that either include Crocus in the title or the summary. The older articles are last.

• Moscow launches probe into Crocus City fire safety staff
• The Mechanism: how the 'order' based on made-up rules is descending into savagery
• US claims its warning to Russia named Crocus Concert Hall
• Why is NATO's, Neo-Nazi junta's cover-up for terrorist attacks in Russia so sloppy?
• Russian intelligence official: 'US shielding itself by whitewashing Kiev role in Moscow terror attack'
• Putin warns Moscow terror attack mastermind: 'We will get them'
• Oh say can you see?
• US seeking to distort facts about Moscow terror attack - intelligence report
• Reuters reports Iran tipped Russia off about 'terrorist operation' ahead of attack, but Kremlin says it was not aware of any such warning
• Council of Europe's silence on Crocus terrorist attack 'shameful' - Moscow
• West behaving 'suspiciously' over Moscow terror attack claims - Lavrov
• Moscow terror attack planned and paid for by Kiev - MEP
• Terror mastermind told attack suspects to flee to Kiev - investigators
• Another suspect arrested in connection with Moscow terrorist attack
• Foreign state 'obviously' supported Moscow terror attack - Erdogan aide
• Ukrainian and western intelligence services certainly involved in Moscow concert hall attack
• The Moscow Crocus City Hall attack: A preliminary view
• New alliances - Another African leader talks Sahel security with Putin The African leader condemns the attack, but don't you think they are told what evidence has surfaced?
• View from India: The US is determined to destabilise Russia
• Korybko: Putin and Patriarch Kirill remind Russians that ethno-religious hate speech is unacceptable
• Best of the Web: Link between Crocus terrorists & Ukraine found - Russian Investigative Committee
• The Crocus Mall slaughter, Who did it?
• Best of the Web: Alastair Crooke: The Crocus concert hall atrocity: No going back
• True North
• Ukrainian 'Caliphate': What the West prefers not to notice when blaming ISIS for the terrorist attack in Moscow
• US 'exposed' itself over Moscow terror attack - Foreign Ministry
• President Putin calls for 'humanism and mercy' after Moscow terror attack
• Moscow slams 'mother of all fakes'
• 'Radical Islamists' carried out Moscow terror attack - Putin
• 'The Moscow terror attack was an inside job!' The strange and twisted world of the West's political and media Russia haters
• Moscow attack reminds us of the links between Islamists and Kiev's fundamentalist nationalists
• The Nuland - Budanov - Tajik - Crocus connection
• Dmitry Trenin: The American explanation for the Moscow terror attack doesn't add up
• 'Kill them all' - Medvedev enraged by Moscow terror attack
• West lying about Moscow terrorist attack - British MP Galloway
• Ukrainian bar mocks deadly Moscow concert hall attack
• Türkiye arrests 14 terrorist suspects, confirm Crocus attackers recent visit, asks why 'ISIS' attacks US-rivals Russia, Iran
• Shadows and Ashes: The Crocus City Hall massacre and the covert war's phantom menace ISIS, cui bono?
• US destroyed anti-terrorism cooperation - Moscow
• Suspects behind Moscow terrorist attack: What is known so far
• It's War: The real meat grinder starts now
• Best of the Web: Mass shooting and explosion reported at concert hall near Moscow leaves dozens killed and wounded

3) ISIS-Khorosan
From the article:

US government-tied media reports within little more than an hour that the Crocus City Hall attack was carried out exclusively by ISIS-Khorosan

Khorosan is in Central Asia, the Wiki has:

Greater Khorāsān^[2] or Khorāsān or Khurāsān [...] is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau between West and Central Asia that encompasses western Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, the eastern halves of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, and portions of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

About this region one finds these article, the oldest first:

• Central Asian states have become a 'terrorist breeding ground' (2017)
• Russian and Chinese intelligence: ISIS will start invasion to Central Asia with US support (May 2018)
• How did Washington become so wrapped up in Central Asia (Aug 2018) which has

Central Asia has traditionally been regarded by Washington as "Russia's soft underbelly", since it's a common belief within American think tanks that by establishing control over this region the US will be capable of subjecting the whole of Eurasia to its will, which means that American hegemony should remain uncontested.

• Uzbekistan is the key to Russia's counter terrorism strategy in Central Asia (Oct 2018)
• Lavrov: ISIS is attempting to turn Afghanistan into its base of operations in Central Asia (Nov 2018)
• The struggle for Uzbekistan: A key component of Washington's Central Asia pivot? (Mar 2019)
• Pakistani PM Imran Khan: Peace with Pakistan will give India direct access to Central Asia (Mar 2021, we now know that Imran Khan was taken out by CIA/US interests.) Before continuing the with links, it is worth noting, that the US left Afghanistan at the end of August 2021:
• EU trying to shut its borders to Afghan refugees & instead direct them to poor ex-Soviet states in Central Asia, Russia claims (Sep 2021)
• NATO in Central Asia 'unacceptable' - Russia (Mar 2022)
• Plots and counter-plots: Western skulduggery to realign Central Asia (Apr 2022)
• Central Asia: The prime battlefield in the New Great Game (Aug 2023)

Given the above situation in Central Asia, when US media within and hour frame ISIS-Khorosan, what are the implications?

For other articles by Gordon M. Hahn see these.
There are also two interviews:
MindMatters: Why Is Russia Like That? 400 Years of Russian Security Culture, with Gordon M. Hahn
The Truth Perspective: Interview with Gordon M. Hahn: Revolution, regime change and jihad

The Crocus as a symbol
Taking a different perspective, the Crocus is in northern latitudes a flower associated with the beginning of Spring, the departure of Winter. There could be a symbolic component to killing and burning at the Crocus City Hall. If that view is dark, there is another, since Saffron, which comes from the Crocus plant is a well known herbal medicine. In Saffron: Very expensive but highly therapeutic, one finds:

While the crocus (Crocus sativus) is loved and appreciated as a colorful harbinger of spring, its mythic fame and power come from its vibrant saffron fronds or threads.
[...]
Documents going back to Hippocrates reveal the use of saffron as a treatment in more than 90 illnesses over 4,000 years. During the Black Death demand for medicinal saffron skyrocketed. This exotic spice has been used for coughs, colds, stomach ailments, insomnia, uterine bleeding, scarlet fever, heart trouble, and flatulence.

Is it all just myth?

No. Modern research backs up the wisdom of the ancients. Saffron has been shown to modulate at least 22 biological pathways. Here are just a few of the proven curative benefits of saffron.

Another article, Saffron Could Save Your Eyesight has:

A recent study conducted by researchers from both Sydney University and the University of L'Aquila in Italy have found that saffron, one of the world's most valuable spices, helps to protect eyes from being damaged by harmful UV rays. The herb also helps to slow the progression of eye diseases like macular degeneration, which causes blindness.

Collected by hand from the deep red stamens of the saffron crocus, the saffron spice is worth up to $800 per pound depending on its quality. It is used in a variety of applications including as a food spice, a coloring agent, and a treatment for disease. Some 90 illnesses, and counting, can be treated with saffron.

It seems that there is more to the Crocus City Hall attack than meets the eye. The lessons that can be learned may eventually save.