President Vladimir Putin says Russia has arrested all four perpetrators of the shooting that killed 133 people at a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, adding that the perpetrators of one of the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s history are planning to flee to Ukraine. He claimed that he had done so.
In his first public comments on the terror attacks that shocked the nation, President Putin made no mention of Islamic State’s claims that they carried out the attacks.
Instead, President Putin on Saturday suggested without evidence that Ukraine may have been involved in Friday’s attack, and said he was “opening a window” to allow the “Ukrainian side” to cross the border from Russia into Ukraine before the terrorists were arrested. I was prepared,” he said.
“They tried to covertly move towards Ukraine, but preliminary data shows that a window was prepared for them to cross the state border from the Ukrainian side,” Putin said in a televised address.
But his comments stopped short of directly blaming Ukraine for the attack, saying those responsible would be punished “whoever they are, whoever sent them.”
Islamic State, through its affiliate news agency, claimed responsibility for the attack in a Telegram post late Friday, and claimed the perpetrators had since managed to escape. IS released photos on Saturday of the four attackers it said were behind the shooting.
The group said in a statement that the shooting was part of a “violent war” between Islamic State and countries fighting Islam.
U.S. officials said Washington has information corroborating the Islamic State’s claims.
Russian officials and state news outlets have remained silent on claims that Islamic State carried out the attack.
Kiev strongly denied involvement in the attack.
Russian security services earlier announced that 11 people, including four suspects involved in the shooting, had been arrested in connection with Friday’s terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow. Russian investigators announced that four suspects were arrested in Bryansk Oblast, which borders Ukraine.
Russia’s Interior Ministry later announced that all four armed suspects were foreigners.
Russian officials claimed the attack was an act of terrorism.
Earlier in the day, FSB security officials appeared to blame Kiev, announcing that the militants had been arrested while attempting to enter Ukraine.
“They were in contact with the Ukrainian side,” the FSB said in a statement.
Some Russian officials also speculate that Ukraine, the country from which Russia launched a full-scale invasion two years ago, may be responsible.
“The events are related to Ukraine,” said First Deputy Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma Alexei Chepa.
This was announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. statement Russian officials said they were working on the charges against Kiev “with the aim of inciting anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society and creating conditions that facilitate the mobilization of the Russian population for criminal aggression against our country.”
Meanwhile, the death toll from the attack had risen to 133 by Saturday afternoon, according to the Russian Investigative Committee. President Putin declared Sunday a day of mourning and expressed his condolences to the families of those killed in the attack.
Russian authorities said at least 145 people were injured, with 16 in “serious condition”.
“The number of victims of terrorist attacks will increase significantly,” Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said.
Photos Friday night showed Crocus City Hall engulfed in flames and graphic video of several people being killed by unknown gunmen. In one video, three men in military uniforms armed with rifles fired at close range at bodies strewn across the lobby of a concert hall. Other video footage showed people screaming, running out of the music venue on all fours and running down stairs.
The attack occurred minutes before the veteran Russian rock band was due to perform in front of a packed audience.
Witness accounts described scenes of confusion and chaos, and said many concertgoers initially thought the gunshots were part of the show.
“We were sitting in the back row waiting for the show to start. At one point, we noticed a loud noise, like fireworks, and thought it was part of the concert,” said one eyewitness. told Meduza.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said those who died at the concert hall died from gunshot wounds and “poisoning” related to the fire.
The commission added that the attackers “used flammable liquids to set fire to the grounds of the concert hall.”
Telegraph agency Baza, which is close to Russia’s security services, reported that the bodies of more than 10 victims were found in one of the toilets at Crocus City Hall.
The victims were hiding from the gunfire and died from the smoke, the department said.
The international community condemned the incident, with the United Nations Security Council calling it a “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Britain “condemns this deadly attack in the strongest possible terms.”
The Crocus City Hall shooting was the deadliest incident in Russia since the Beslan school siege in 2004. In the incident, 334 people, including 186 children, were killed after being held captive by the insurgents for two days.
Questions will arise as to why President Putin appears to have rejected the terror warning weeks before the attack.
Friday’s attack came two weeks after Western countries led by the United States issued a terror alert and told citizens not to attend public gatherings in Russia.
The group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attack was an Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan called Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP).
U.S. officials say Washington received intelligence in March that ISKP was planning an attack on Moscow.
President Putin called the March warning from Western embassies a “provocation.”
But on Saturday, Tass news agency, citing Russian security officials, confirmed that Russian security services had indeed received information from the United States about a possible terrorist attack.
The FSB previously announced that it had thwarted an attack on a synagogue in Moscow by ISKP, an organization aiming to establish a caliphate across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran.
On Saturday, Russian state news broadcast footage of the interrogation of the three alleged attackers, including one in which the suspects spoke in Tajik through an interpreter.
ISKP has previously been reported to be recruiting talent radicalized People from Central Asia, including Tajikistan.
One of the videos, distributed by a Russian blogger, shows members of the security forces cutting off the ear of a man, who is then questioned about the attack.
Russian authorities have recently carried out a series of raids against armed Islamic extremists in the Ingushetia region, leading to gun battles between police and fighters.
Paweł Wojcik, an expert on Islamic State messaging and propaganda, said IS messaging after the Moscow attack was similar to previous attacks the group claimed in Tehran and Kabul. Ta.
“The messages we saw from IS after the attack were standard,” Wojcik told the Guardian.
Wojcik said there would be “many motives” for IS to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia, including Russia’s involvement in operations against IS in Syria, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Putin intervened in 2015 and turned the tide in Syria’s civil war by supporting the country’s President Bashar al-Assad against the rebels and Islamic State.
Wojcik added that ISKP has recently “integrated anti-Russian rhetoric into its propaganda efforts.”
