Did Russian President Vladimir Putin overplay his hand?

Only five days after Putin breezed to another six-year term in power following a heavily stage-managed election, Russia suffered its deadliest terrorist attack in decades. At least 140 people died when attackers stormed Crocus City Hall, a shopping and entertainment complex on Moscow's northwestern edge, first raking concertgoers with gunfire and then setting the venue ablaze.

Putin's near-immediate response to Friday's attack was to blame Ukraine, the neighboring sovereign country he has spent the last two years trying to subdue militarily. The government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vehemently denied any involvement in the attack.

On the face of it, analysts say, Putin's accusation against Ukraine makes no sense.

The Islamist group ISIS-K, an offshoot of Islamic State, quickly claimed responsibility, and even proffered self-shot video of the attack as proof. U.S. intelligence officials had publicly and privately warned that such an attack inside Russia by Islamist militants — who have targeted the country Russia over decades — was in the works, though its assessment of imminent danger was made a few weeks before the actual strike. Putin publicly dismissed the warnings as attempts to intimidate Russia.

Putin's apparatus has pivoted in recent days to grudging acknowledgment that the likely culprits had an agenda unrelated to Ukraine: revenge for years of carnage carried out by Russian security forces in Syria, Chechnya and other Muslim states.

After the attack, Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, reported the arrests of 11 people. The four suspected gunmen, who have been identified as Tajik nationals, were brought into court over the weekend on terrorism charges, appearing battered and brutalized. One appeared to be drifting in and out of consciousness.

But the Russian leader and his senior lieutenants have continued to insist that Ukraine played some role in the attack — and have widened the scope of the accusation to include Ukraine's Western backers.

The FSB head, Alexander Bortnikov, said Tuesday that investigators believed that while "radical Islamists" carried out the actual attack, "Western special services assisted, and Ukrainian special services played a direct role." Bortnikov cited no evidence to support the assertion.

Bortnikov sought to cast suspicion on two of Ukraine's staunchest allies, Britain and the United States. "We think that's the case," he said Tuesday when Russian reporters asked whether Washington and London had aided the attackers.

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