Putin’s new low

Any country that has endured a terrorist attack as deadly as that inflicted on concertgoers in Moscow last Friday deserves sympathy and for the culprits to be condemned in the strongest terms.

The victims, enjoying a night out, were gunned down or choked by fumes from a fire in an attack bearing the hallmarks of Islamist fanatics. Indeed, the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.

Yet as the world voices its compassion for the relatives of the dead and the hundreds recovering from their wounds, what does Vladimir Putin do? He seeks to involve Ukraine in the blame and then orders a massive missile strike on Kyiv.

This is a new low even by the Russian president’s standards but it is done deliberately to deflect any blame from himself. The Kremlin had been tipped off by Western intelligence to the possibility of an attack from an IS splinter organisation operating in the Khorasan region but ignored the warnings, calling it a provocation.

The FSB security agency received the information several weeks ago and one of the arrested suspects has been seen on state television speaking Tajik. Yet Putin did not mention Isis or Islamist terrorism in his first remarks to the nation after the atrocity.

Perhaps the authorities might not have been able to stop the assault but they would at least have been alert to the threat and could even have intercepted it. Putin is now trying to muddy the waters to avoid any embarrassing questions about his own culpability and doubtless Russia’s tame media will convince credulous citizens that it was all a Kyivinspired plot. But his election campaign claim to be the man Russians can trust to keep their country secure has been shattered.