Putin: Supermarket bombing in St. Petersburg was terrorism
Homemade device inside locker injured 13 shoppers
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said a bomb blast in a St. Petersburg supermarket on Wednesday was an act of terrorism, and that security forces whose lives were threatened by terrorist suspects should shoot to kill if necessary.
Putin, who is running for reelection in March, was speaking on Thursday at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin for personnel who served in Russia’s Syria campaign, which Moscow has framed as an antiterrorism operation.
“You know that yesterday in St. Petersburg a terrorist act was carried out,” Putin told the audience, referring to the explosion that wounded 13 shoppers in a branch of the Perekrestok supermarket chain.
Investigators have opened a criminal case into Wednesday evening’s blast, which they say was caused by a homemade bomb packed with pieces of metal.
Russian media reports said the bomb was hidden inside a rucksack in a locker where shoppers leave their belongings and said the person who left the bomb, described as being of “non-Slavic appearance,” had been caught on CCTV. No group has claimed responsibility. Russia has repeatedly been the target of attacks by Islamist groups, including an attack in April that killed 14 people when an explosion tore through a train carriage in a metro tunnel in St. Petersburg.
That attack was claimed by an Islamist group that said the suicide bomber was acting on the orders of al-Qaida. Russian police detained several suspects in that attack from mainly Muslim states in ex-Soviet central Asia.
Putin told the ceremony the Federal Security Service security service had also prevented “another attempted terrorist act.”
A Kremlin spokesman said Putin was referring to a foiled attack on Kazansky Cathedral, in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second city.
The Kremlin said earlier this month that a US tipoff had helped thwart the attack, in a rare public show of cooperation despite deep strains between the two countries.
Russian media reported earlier this month that the FSB had detained seven members of an Islamic State cell who had been planning the attack.
Putin told the same awards ceremony that the security situation in Russia would be much worse if thousands of Russian citizens who fought with Islamic State in Syria had been allowed to return home.
“What would have happened if those thousands of people... returned to us [from Syria]? If they returned with good weapons training...?” he asked.
Putin said security forces should take no chances with their own lives if confronted by terrorist suspects.