Putin vows retribution for deadly Moscow concert hall attack
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday vowed to punish those behind the “barbaric terrorist attack” on a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130, saying four gunmen trying to flee to Ukraine had been arrested.
Kyiv has strongly denied any connection, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accusing Putin of trying to shift the blame onto them.
Putin, in his first public remarks on the attack, made no reference to a statement by the Daesh group claiming responsibility.
At least 133 people were killed when camouflaged gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall, in Moscow’s northern suburb of Krasnogorsk, and then set fire to the building on Friday evening.
The Daesh group wrote on Telegram Saturday that the attack was “carried out by four Daesh fighters armed with machine guns, a pistol, knives and firebombs,” as part of “the raging war” with “countries fighting Islam.”
A video apparently shot by gunmen who carried out the deadly attack has been posted on social media accounts typically used by the group Daesh, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
The video, which lasts a minute and a half, shows several individuals with blurred faces and garbled voices, armed with assault rifles and knives.
They appear to be at the lobby of the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Krasnogorsk, northwest of the Russian capital.
The attackers fire several bursts of gunfire, numerous inert bodies are strewn about and a fire can be seen starting in the background.
It is the deadliest attack in Russia for almost two decades and the deadliest in Europe to have been claimed by Daesh.
Russian officials expect the death toll to rise further, with more than 100 wounded in hospital.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the burnt-out building on Saturday.
The emergency situations ministry has so far named 29 of the victims, the blaze having complicated the process of identification.
“Terrorists, murderers, non-humans ... have only one unenviable fate: retribution and oblivion,” Putin said in his televised address Saturday.
Calling the attack a “barbaric, terrorist act,” he said “all four direct perpetrators ... all those who shot and killed people, have been found and detained.”
Russian television showed security services interrogating four bloodied men, who spoke Russian with an accent, on a road in the western Bryansk region, which borders both Ukraine and Belarus.
“They tried to escape and were traveling toward Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” said Putin.
Putin also compared the attackers to “Nazis” and said the attack was an “atrocity, a strike against Russia and our people.”
Zelensky, in his evening address
Saturday, dismissed the suggestion that Kyiv had been involved.
“What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious,” he said. “Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else.”
“They always have the same methods. It has happened before. There have been bombed houses, shootings, and explosions. And they always blame others,” he added.