Putin admits terrorists were IS – but blames Kyiv
Politicians debate return of death penalty for attackers as video shows suspect being made to eat own ear
VLADIMIR PUTIN has acknowledged for the first time that radical Islamists carried out the worst terrorist attack in Russia in two decades but repeated his unproven claim that Ukraine was also involved.
It comes as the Kremlin faced calls to bring back the death penalty with videos emerging of Russian security officers torturing suspected attackers who were detained over the weekend, including cutting off one man’s ear and forcing him to eat it.
Speaking at a televised video conference with senior officials last night, Putin suggested the attack was “just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 by the hands of the neo-nazi Kyiv regime”.
He went on: “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?” The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday night that killed at least 139 people at Crocus City Hall.
The US has said it has intelligence that confirms that claim and that the group appears to have acted alone.
Ukraine has strongly denied any involvement in the attack.
Putin did not refer specifically to IS, which has claimed responsibility, but said the killings were carried out by extremists “whose ideology the Islamic world has been fighting for centuries”.
The Russian president has now been urged to restore the death penalty by senior allies of the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, authorities released footage of officers torturing the suspects, including one man having his ear cut off and force-fed to him.
IS has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack. A video released by the group showed the attackers gunning people down at point blank range and slitting at least one victim’s throat.
Four suspects, all of them citizens of Tajikistan, were detained and charged with terrorism over the weekend. At least two of them showed signs of torture when they appeared in court.
The men were identified as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Three more men were arrested yesterday afternoon.
Video footage released on Russian social media showed security officers torturing the suspects including one being subjected to electric shocks.
In one video, the suspect named as Rachabalizoda spits as he is fed his own ear. Appearing in court on Sunday, he had a large bandage on his head.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, wrote on his Telegram channel: “Do they have to be killed?” he asked. “They have to be. And will be.”
Vladimir Vasilyev, the head of the United Russia faction in the state Duma, Russia’s lower house, told state televi- sion on Saturday that capital punishment was being “considered seriously”.
“A decision will be made to meet the moods and expectations of society.”
Yuri Afonin, the deputy head of the Duma’s security committee, called for capital punishment to be restored in cases of “terrorism and murder”.
The Kremlin yesterday said it was not currently considering reintroducing capital punishment.
Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister, said “the perpetrators will be punished, they do not deserve mercy,” but did not explicitly endorse capital punishment. Russia has observed a moratorium on the death penalty since it joined the Council of Europe in 1996.
Medvedev and other officials called for it to be reinstated after Russia was kicked out of the council following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but critics have said it would require a major reworking of the constitution.
Mr Peskov declined to answer a question about the alleged torture of suspects and said he could not comment on the IS claim of responsibility.
Putin, in his address to the nation, made no mention of jihadist involvement in the attack and instead linked it to Ukraine, saying the attackers “tried to escape and were travelling towards Ukraine” and that “a window” had been prepared for them to cross the border. He presented no evidence to back up the claim. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, strongly denied the allegation. The US said its intelligence showed IS had acted alone.
Several Kremlin-friendly media outlets and commentators sought to promote Putin’s theory yesterday, however, raising fears that the Russian government planned to use the attack as an excuse to further escalate the war.
Yesterday, Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, warned Moscow against any “exploitation” of the attack, saying it would be “cynical and counterproductive for Russia to use this context to try and turn it against Ukraine”.
He said it was a branch of IS that “planned the attack and carried it out”, adding this outfit had also plotted attacks in France.
Russia has suffered repeatedly from Islamist terrorism over the past 30 years, including in the 2004 Beslan school siege that killed 334 people including 186 children.
Human rights group gulagu.net, which documents the horrors of Russia’s prison system, said the open torture of suspects reflected society. “For more than 10 years, we have been consistently exposing torture and its systemic nature in Russia,” it said. “Sanctions are given from the very top.”