We will destroy you: Putin
Moscow – President Vladimir Putin warned terrorists yesterday that they faced ‘‘ total destruction’’ as Russian officials said one of the bombers who wrought havoc in the city of Volgograd at the weekend was a Slav convert to Islam.
From the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, where he was visiting citizens who lost their homes in floods in the summer, Putin updated a recorded television Year message making no mention of the Volgograd bombs that had gone out earlier to regions even further east. ‘‘ Dear friends, we bow our heads before the victims of the terrible acts of terror. I am sure we will continue to fight resolutely against terrorists until their total destruction,’’ he said in the new address.
In the original greeting, broadcast in the furthest- flung time zones of Magadan and Kamchatka, Putin, standing in a black coat against a backdrop of the Kremlin, spoke of a year in which Russia had encountered problems and been challenged by serious trials but also seen life get ‘‘ better, richer and more comfortable’’.
Putin broke with tradition to change the recorded address. His spokesman said a ‘‘ technical glitch’’ had led to two New Year addresses going out, one that mentioned the bombings and one that did not.
Russian authorities believe the suicide bomber who killed 18 people at the railway station in Volgograd on Sunday may have been Pavel Pechyonkin, a former ambulance paramedic.
The Moscow Times quoted officials as saying that Pechyonkin, who left home in the Volga region of Mari El to join Islamic militants in Dagestan, had changed his name to Ansar ar- Rusi. The death toll from twin bombings in Volgograd – a trolleybus was also blown up on Monday – rose to 34 as three victims died overnight in hospital. Investigators said the remains of a man responsible for the trolleybus bombing were found in the wreckage.
Pechyonkin’s parents, Nikolai and Fanaziya, made a video in March, appealing to their son to give up his jihad and return home. He turned them down in video reply, after which they travelled to Dagestan but failed to find him. In despair, they made a second video appeal, which got no response. In that video, Pechyonkin, who will give his blood to see if it is a DNA match, said his son had told them he was going to Moscow to find work.
Pavel later informed them that he had got a job in the capital with an ambulance crew, treating drunks and drug addicts, but then he disappeared, only to resurface with the militants. His mother said she and her husband were ‘‘ rolling around and tearing our hair in pain’’ at what had become of their son.
In the earlier appeal, his mother, a Muslim, said she doubted Islam required its followers to kill. ‘‘ Pasha, I’m begging you, please come back. Imagine what is happening to me now; how I am feeling. I’m not living; I’m in hell.’’
Pechyonkin said his parents’ tears had saddened him but he would not turn back. ‘‘ I am not inventing anything from the Koran; I am reading it,’’ he said.
‘‘ Why should we follow those Christian commandments, when Allah urges us to fight those kuffars? Why shouldn’t we leave their children orphaned?’’
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