Russia digs in on unproven attack claims
Another official says Ukraine, West behind concert hall assault, despite Islamic group already taking credit
Russia on Tuesday deepened its accusations against Ukraine and its Western allies, claiming again, without evidence, they were most likely involved in the terrorist attack on a concert hall near Moscow that killed at least 139 people.
Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service, the top security agency in Russia, said the assault “was prepared by both radical Islamists themselves and, naturally, facilitated by Western special services.”
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and eight people have been arrested in connection with the assault.
According to the state news agency Tass, when asked whether Russia believed the United States, Britain and Ukraine were involved in the attack, Bortnikov said, “We believe that’s the case.”
“Overall, we believe that they were involved in this,” Bortnikov told journalists, referring to Ukraine. He said his accusations were still based on preliminary information.
The Ukrainian government has denied it was involved in the assault. Speaking about Bortnikov’s statements, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential aide, called them “lies.”
“This is now chronic,” Podolyak said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The United States has said the assault was the work of an Islamic State offshoot, the Islamic State in Khorasan, and there was no evidence implicating Ukraine.
On Monday evening, three days after the massacre, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged “radical Islamists” had carried out the attack, while still insisting Ukraine may have played a role. Analysts have said the Kremlin may be seeking to deflect attention from what appears to be a startling intelligence failure in preventing the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades.
The new statements Tuesday were broadly in line with the comments made by Putin on Monday. They reflected Moscow’s growing determination to muster political and media resources to blame what are seen as Russia’s main enemies at the moment: Ukraine and its Western backers.
A district court in Moscow on Tuesday arraigned another suspect as investigators continued to cast their net for anyone involved in the attack.
That suspect, Alisher Kasimov, was ordered by the court to stay in pretrial detention until May 22, according to the news service for Moscow courts. Speaking outside the courthouse, Kasimov’s mother told journalists her son, who has three children, did not know the terrorists and only rented them his apartment, which he had advertised online, according to a video published by Sota, a Russian news outlet.
A native of Kyrgyzstan, Alisher Kasimov joined a group of three other people accused of being accomplices, who were arraigned Monday for aiding the four people accused of carrying out the attack. One of them sold his car — a white Renault — to one of the men suspected of executing the attack. Shortly after it happened, the man who sold his car reported to a police station but was arrested together with his brother and father, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe, a Russian news outlet.
The brisk arrests reflected a push by the Russian government to investigate the massacre as quickly as possible.
Speaking at a meeting with Russian prosecutors Tuesday, Putin said he hoped that “the criminals receive a fair punishment,” referring to those accused of carrying out the attack.
On Tuesday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told journalists the investigation was continuing and that so far, investigators had not put forward any definite answers on who was behind the attack.
Speaking Monday night, Putin demanded answers. While he admitted the crime “was perpetrated by radical Islamists,” he said Ukraine, backed by the West, could have masterminded the attack.
“We know whose hands were used to commit this atrocity against Russia and its people,” Putin said. “We want to know who ordered it.”
So far, the Russian government has not produced any evidence that the four men arrested in connection with carrying out the attack had any links to Ukraine. Russian officials and pro-Kremlin media outlets have cited the site of their arrest — the Bryansk region of Russia, which borders Ukraine — as evidence that they were planning to flee there.
On Saturday, Putin claimed according to preliminary information, “a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
At the meeting with Putin on Monday, Russian officials provided more details about how the tragedy had unfolded.
According to Alexander Bastrykin, Russia’s top investigator, the four suspects arrived at the scene more than an hour before the concert. They waited for the spectators to gather and started shooting two minutes before the show was scheduled to start, said Bastrykin, who is the head of the Investigative Committee, Russia’s equivalent to the FBI. Thirteen minutes later, they fled the concert hall, Bastrykin said.
While leaving the parking lot in a white Renault, they ran over a family, severely injuring two children, he said. Investigators discovered two AK-47 rifles at the scene of the crime, the investigator said, as well as more than 500 bullets.
Tatiana Golikova, Russia’s deputy prime minister in charge of health care, said that 145 people were hospitalized in the aftermath of the attack and that 93, including five children, remained hospitalized. Nine people, including one child, are in very grave condition, fighting for their lives, she said.