Russia has arrested 11 people including four suspected gunmen in connection with a shooting rampage that killed at least 143 people in a concert hall near Moscow, the Kremlin said yesterday.
Although the militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, the deadliest in Russia in 20 years, there were indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link, despite a statement from Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak that Kyiv had nothing to do with it.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said that “all four terrorists” had been arrested while heading to the Ukrainian border, and that they had contacts in Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
It said they were being transferred to Moscow.
“Now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from pursuit — Ukraine,” Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.
Senior Russian lawmaker Andrei Kartapolov said that if Ukraine was involved, then Russia must deliver a “worthy, clear and concrete” reply on the battlefield.
Photo: AFP
State TV editor Margarita Simonyan published a video of one of the suspects, a young bearded man, being interrogated by the side of a road.
She said the death toll had climbed to 143, but did not give the source of her information.
The Russian Investigative Committee earlier said that at least 115 had died in the attack, in which camouflage-clad gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons at concertgoers in the Crocus City Hall near the capital.
It said that some died from gunshot wounds and others in a huge fire that broke out in the complex.
Reports said the gunmen had lit the blaze using gasoline from canisters they carried in rucksacks.
People fled in panic.
Baza, a news outlet with good contacts in Russian security and law enforcement, said that 28 bodies were found in a toilet and 14 on a staircase.
“Many mothers were found embracing their children,” it said.
FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov had reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that those detained included “four terrorists” and that the service was working to identify their accomplices, the Kremlin said.
Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said passports from Tajikistan were found in the car the attackers had fled in.
Russia has yet to publicly present evidence of any Ukrainian link to the attack.
“Let’s be straight about this: Ukraine had absolutely nothing to do with these events,” Podolyak said. “We have a full-scale, all-out war with the Russian regular army and with the Russian Federation as a country. And regardless of everything, everything will be decided on the battlefield.”
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