Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday said for the first time that “radical Islamists” were behind last week’s attack on a concert hall outside Moscow, but suggested they were linked to Ukraine somehow.
Eleven people have been detained in connection with the attack, which saw camouflaged gunmen storm into Crocus City Hall, open fire on concertgoers and set the building ablaze, killing at least 139 people.
“We know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries,” Putin said in a televised meeting.
Photo: EPA-EFE
However, the Russian leader said that “many questions” remained unanswered, including why the attackers tried to flee to Ukraine — a claim that Kyiv has rejected.
“Of course, it is necessary to answer the question, why, after committing the crime, the terrorists tried to go to Ukraine. Who was waiting for them there?” Putin asked.
“This atrocity might be just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014,” he said, referring to Ukraine and its allies.
Ukraine has described accusations it was involved as absurd.
“Putin was talking to himself again, and it was again broadcast on television. Again, he blames Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his evening address.
The Islamic State group has said several times since Friday last week that it was responsible and Islamic State-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue.
When asked about Islamic State’s claimed involvement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday said that an investigation was still ongoing.
Officials expect the death toll to rise further, as rescuers were searching the site for remains on Monday and 97 people were still in hospital.
The Kremlin has expressed confidence in the nation’s security agencies, despite swirling questions over how they failed to thwart the massacre amid public and private warnings by the US’ intelligence apparatus.
In a series of late-night hearings in Moscow that ran into the early hours of Monday, four of the suspects — with bruises and cuts on their swollen faces — were dragged in to the capital’s Basmanny District Court before dozens of reporters.
FSB officers wheeled one into the hearing on a gurney, his eyes barely open.
Peskov refused to comment on reports and videos on social media that showed bloody interrogations of the suspects after they were arrested on Saturday.
The court identified them as Muhammadsobir Fayzov, Shamsidin Fariduni, Rachabalizoda Saidakrami and Dalerjon Mirzoyev. Russian state media said they were all citizens of Tajikistan.
Two of them pleaded guilty, the court said.
Three other suspects, whom Russian media identified as family members Aminchon Islomov, Dilovar Islomov and Isroil Islomov, were remanded in pretrial detention on Monday.
One of those detained has Russian citizenship, Interfax news agency reported.
All of those held in custody have been charged with terrorism and face up to life in prison.
The Kremlin has pushed back at suggestions that the death penalty would be reintroduced.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS