With almost more than two years of armed conflict and enmity to the core, Russia ignores that a branch of the Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for Friday's terrible attack near Moscow, or that senior officials in the Kyiv Government have denied being involved. involved in the killing. The Russian authorities were investigating yesterday the Ukrainian clue, which seems to be their main theory to investigate and find those responsible for an attack that left 133 dead and more than 140 injured. In his first public appearance after the events, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed to Ukraine as an accomplice. He promised revenge and assured that, when they were arrested, the terrorists “fled in the direction of Ukraine.”
The head of the Kremlin confirmed the arrest of eleven people, as the head of the Security Services (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, had informed him hours before. At the time of their arrest, Putin noted, the bandits “were trying to hide and were heading in the direction of Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a hole had been prepared on the Ukrainian side through which they could cross the state border,” Putin said. .
Among those arrested are the four armed men who on Friday, March 22, entered the Crocus City shopping center with automatic weapons, grenades and dressed in camouflage clothing, located in the municipal area of the city of Krasnogorsk, northwest of the Russian capital and just 25 kilometers from the Kremlin.
It was eight o'clock at night in Moscow (two hours less in Barcelona) when after entering the premises they began their orgy of blood, shooting with their assault rifles at everyone they saw. They then stormed the Crocus City Hall concert hall, where about 6,000 people were waiting for Russian rock group Piknik's concert to begin.
There the carnage continued. “They were shooting from all places,” a witness told the Russian media RBK. In video images released on Friday, people are seen taking their seats and then running in terror towards the exits while the shots of powerful repeating weapons were heard over the screams. Several explosions were also heard, and the attackers started a fire that ended up engulfing that part of the complex and making it difficult to evacuate hundreds of people who had been trapped. The auditorium burned completely and part of the roof collapsed.
The Telegram channel Baza reported that 28 bodies were found in a bathroom and another 14 on some stairs. “A lot of mothers were hugging their children,” she said.
Putin assured that investigators had identified and arrested all the perpetrators of the attack. “A disastrous fate awaits terrorists, murderers and beasts, who do not and cannot have a nationality: revenge and oblivion. They have no future,” the Russian president promised.
Russian MP Alexander Jinshtein said the attackers fled in a white Renault Symbol vehicle that was stopped by police on Friday night in Bryansk Oblast, about 340 kilometers southwest of Moscow. The car did not obey and during a chase ended up overturning. Two men were arrested. A pistol, an assault rifle magazine and passports from Tajikistan, one of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, were found in the car.
The Russian Interior Ministry assured that the terrorists were foreigners and denied reports in some media that they had obtained Russian passports.
Putin called the attack “bloody and barbaric” and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and the dead. He recalled that the dozens of victims of the attack were peaceful and innocent people.
In addition, he expressed his gratitude to the doctors, rescue teams and firefighters for doing everything possible to save people's lives. This Sunday, March 24, is an official day of mourning throughout Russia, the president reported. The mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, canceled all events that could bring together a large number of people, including sports and cultural events. Similar measures have been taken by Moscow Province, Saint Petersburg and other cities and regions of the country.
According to data from the Investigative Committee, which in Russia is in charge of investigating the most serious crimes, the number of deaths yesterday reached 133. The Health Services of the Moscow Province, on which Krasnogorsk administratively depends, estimated the number of injured in more than 140.
Prominent figures in the Ukrainian government denied, both on Friday and yesterday, Kyiv's involvement in the bloody assault. “Ukraine certainly had nothing to do with the shooting or the explosions at Crocus City Hall. "It doesn't make any sense," Mijaílo Podoliak, advisor to the Ukrainian Presidency's office, said on the social network X. And he added that “Ukraine has never resorted to terrorist methods” to combat Russia.
"Although the world warned of this type of terrorist attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation, the Putin regime did nothing to prevent it or is involved in the organization," Intelligence spokesman Andri Yusov told Russian television yesterday. Ukrainian Military (GUR). “We consider these accusations as a provocation by the Kremlin to foment anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society, strengthen the mobilization of Russian citizens to join the criminal aggression against our State and discredit Ukraine before the international community,” the Friday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
On Friday, a group called the Islamic State of Greater Khorasan (or ISIS-J) claimed responsibility for the attack. And yesterday he released an image of the four alleged shooters at the Krasnogorsk concert hall. In a non-explanatory image, broadcast by the Amaq agency, the main propaganda channel of the IS, four people appear with half their faces covered, with a cap and pixelated eyes in front of an Islamic State flag.
But Russia seemed to insist yesterday on the Ukrainian track. The FSB said the commando had contacts with Ukraine and that they were detained near the border. Neither the security agency nor Putin publicly offered evidence of links between the terrorists and Kyiv.
Russian deputy Andrei Kartapolov, who chairs the Duma Defense Committee, said that if it turns out that Ukraine is involved, then Russia will have to apply a "dignified, clear and concrete" response on the battlefield.
Former Russian president Dimitri Medvedev, today vice president of the Security Council and converted into one of the hawks of Russian politics, spoke in similar terms, promising the organizers of the attack “terror of retaliation.” “If it is determined that these are terrorists of the Kyiv regime, it is impossible to deal with them and their ideological inspirers in any other way. All of them must be found and destroyed mercilessly as terrorists. Including the State officials who committed this atrocity. Death by death,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
