Putin admits Islamists behind attack, tries to implicate Ukraine

(Reuters) — Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged on Monday that last week’s deadly attack at a concert outside Moscow was carried out by Islamic militants, but suggested it was also to the benefit of Ukraine and that Kyiv may have played a role.

Putin’s remarks, to a Kremlin meeting devoted to measures taken in response to the attack, were delivered as France joined the U.S. in saying intelligence indicated the Islamic State was responsible.

In the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades, four men burst into the Crocus City Hall on Friday night, spraying bullets during a concert by the Soviet-era rock group Picnic.

Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, told the Kremlin meeting the death toll had risen to 139, with 182 people wounded.

Four men of Tajik origin were remanded in custody on terrorism charges at Moscow’s Basmanny district court on suspicion of carrying out the attack. Three others, also of Tajik origin, were remanded in custody on suspicion of complicity.

Islamic State has said it was responsible for the attack and has released what it says is footage from the massacre.

“We know that the crime was carried out by the hand of radical Islamists with an ideology that the Muslim world has fought for centuries,” Putin said in remarks posted on the Telegram messaging app.

He did not directly mention Islamic State, and repeated his previous assertion that the assailants had been trying to flee to Ukraine, saying there were “many questions” to be examined.

“The question that arises is who benefits from this?” Putin said. “This atrocity may be 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.”

“We know by whose hand the crime against Russia and its people was committed. But what is of interest to us is who ordered it.”

Putin said the purpose of the attack was to “sow panic”. But as Russian forces were advancing through the Ukraine war theatre, he said, it could also be intended to “show their own population that not all is lost for the Kyiv regime.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy derided Putin’s comments in his nightly video address, saying that for the Kremlin leader “everyone is a terrorist, except himself, though he has been thriving on terror for two decades.”