Radical Islamists carried out Moscow concert hall attack: Putin

MOSCOW: The deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow was conducted by radical Islamists, but the shooting fits in a wider campaign of intimidation by Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

“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,” Putin said.

According to him those who planned the attack “hoped to sow panic and discord in our society, but they met unity and determination to resist this evil.”

Putin had previously not publicly mentioned Islamic State in connection with the assailants, who he said had been trying to flee to Ukraine with help from “the Ukrainian side”.

Ukraine has denied any role in the attack and President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Putin of seeking to divert blame for the attack by mentioning Ukraine, something Macron said was a mistake.

“I think that it would be both cynical and counterproductive for Russia itself and the security of its citizens to use this context to try and turn it against Ukraine,” he said, adding that France had offered cooperation to help find the culprits. The White House also dismissed Russian suggestions that the attack was linked to Ukraine.

“This is just more Kremlin propaganda,” White House spokesman John Kirby said in Washington.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, earlier called into question US assertions that Islamic State, which once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, was behind the attack.

The gunmen from Tajikistan who carried out a deadly attack in Moscow last week briefly entered Turkiye to renew their Russian residence permits, but their radicalisation did not happen there, a Turkish security official told Reuters on Monday.

There was no existing arrest warrant against the attackers, meaning they could travel freely between Turkiye and Russia, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that the attackers had been living in Moscow for a long time.

Two of the attackers left Turkiye to travel to Moscow on the same flight on March 2, 2024, the person said.

More than 143 people were killed and dozens more injured in the attack, which was later claimed by Islamic State.