Putin tries to blame Ukraine for attack
RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has suggested that Ukraine was linked to the attack on a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow that killed 133 people.
The so-called Islamic State group’s (IS) Afghanistan branch claimed responsibility for Friday’s assault on the Crocus City Hall in a statement posted on social media.
A US intelligence official told the Associated Press that American agencies had confirmed that the group was responsible for the attack.
Yesterday afternoon, Russian officials raised the death toll to 133.
Eleven people in total have been detained in relation to the attack.
In an address to the nation, Mr Putin called the attack “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said all four people who were directly involved had been taken into custody.
He suggested they had been trying to cross the border into Ukraine which, he said, tried to create a “window” to help them escape.
Mr Putin said additional security measures have been imposed throughout the country and declared that Sunday will be a nationwide day of mourning.
The attack was the deadliest in Russia in years and left the concert hall a smouldering ruin.
The venue had a capacity of more than 6,000 people in Krasnogorsk, on Moscow’s western edge.
Ukraine has strongly denied any involvement in the attack.
Some Russian legislators pointed the finger at Ukraine immediately after the attack.
But Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian president
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, strongly denied any involvement.
“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,” he posted on X.
“Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry also denied that the country had any involvement and accused Moscow of using the attack to try to stoke fervour for its war efforts.
“We consider such accusations to be a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society, create conditions for increased mobilisation of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country, and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community,” an official said in a statement.
Images shared by Russian state media showed a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall.
Meanwhile, hundreds of shocked Russians queued up yesterday in Moscow to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.
Shocked Russians took flowers and teddy bears yesterday to the concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, to pay their respects.
Mourners hung flowers on fences and piled them on the ground a short distance from the concert hall where gunmen opened fire on a crowd and set off explosives that started a huge fire.
Videos on social media showed candles and flowers being laid in memory of the dead and wounded at monuments across Russia.
Messages of outrage, shock and support for those affected have since streamed in from around the world