Wladimir Putin has called for revenge on those responsible for the biggest attack in Moscow in the last two decades. A terrorist attack of unprecedented magnitude since 2004, which killed at least 133 people. “All perpetrators, organizers and initiators of this crime will receive a deserved and irreparable punishment, whoever they are and regardless of whether they were sent,” the Russian president said in his first message to the nation since the incident.
On Friday night, just hours after the attack, the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility through the jihadist propaganda outlet Amaq, and on Saturday the group released a broader statement in which it described the incidents as… “A hard blow” against the “thousands of Christians” which were located at the Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow.
The jihadists did not reveal the “Wilaya,” the offshoot of the group that carried out the attack, but shared an image with the pixelated faces of the four suspected attackers who broke into the concert hall and opened fire on the crowd before entering the building Set fire. According to independent media, the color, cut and pattern of the clothing of two of them match those of those detained by the Russian security services. The insider.
Putin confirmed that 11 people suspected of being involved in the attack had been arrested, including the four suspected attackers. They all have Tajik passports, said the Interior Ministry spokesman. Irina Volk.
The arrest occurred near the town of Yatsun in the Bryansk region, about 340 kilometers southwest of Moscow, and was the result of a joint operation by the FSB and fighters from the Chechen Akhmat Regiment, according to Chechnya’s leader. Ramzan Kadirov. The vehicle they were driving was a white Renault Logan, believed to be the same one in which they arrived at Crocus Town Hall late Friday afternoon.
In his televised address, Putin did not speculate about the mastermind of the attack, nor did he explicitly assign responsibility to the Ukrainian authorities, although he assured that they were the suspected perpetrators of the attack “They tried to escape and were on their way to Ukrainewhere, according to preliminary information, a window on the Ukrainian side had been prepared for border crossing.
The Ukrainian presidency flatly rejected the allegations. “Despite the fact that the world has warned about this type of terrorist attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation, the Putin regime has not done anything to prevent them or is involved in organizing them,” the spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence said yesterday . Andriy Yusovin a television interview.
Yussov was alluding to the warnings from the US Embassy in Moscow at the beginning of March, which warned of the danger of an “immediate attack” by “extremists” on Russian soil. Putin rejected the warnings just three days before the attack, viewing them as “obvious blackmail” aimed at “intimidating and destabilizing” Russian society.
After the massacre in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, the Kremlin tried to throw things away. The spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharovaaccused Washington of failing to provide concrete information on the matter, statements that were quickly denied by the spokesman for the US National Security Council. Adrian Watson.
The focus of the research is on Islamic authorship. Russian security services are investigating links between those arrested in the attack and the Islamic State. However, the FSB does not rule out Kyiv’s involvement since, according to Putin, the suspects had “relevant contacts” with the Ukrainian side.
High-ranking officials, such as Aleksei Tsydenov, governor of the Buryatia region, blamed terrorists “coordinated by the Ukrainian special services” in the first hours after the attack. Other relevant personalities, such as the editor-in-chief of RT, Margarita Simonyanpaved the way for Ukraine and the United States to be accused of being behind the attack.
Putin, who came to power in 1999 with a tough stance against terrorism as his calling card, regretted that the victims included children, young people and women. According to investigators, the cause of death of the concertgoers in whom the tragedy occurred are both gunshot wounds and smoke asphyxia.
Russian authorities extended the cancellation of all mass events until early next week. Thousands of Muscovites went to medical centers yesterday to donate blood to Crocus City Hall victims. Residents of the capital formed kilometers-long queues and waited several hours before being allowed access to some centers, Russian media reported.