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Contrary to the Russian claim that the attackers behind Moscow’s Crocus Hall massacre—killing nearly 140 people and injuring 182— tried crossing into Ukraine first, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday claimed that the terrorists first tried to enter his country, but were turned away because of checkpoints, newswire AFP reported.
“That’s why there was no way they could enter Belarus. They saw that. That’s why they turned away and went to the section of the Ukrainian-Russian border,” the AFP quoted the Belarusian president as saying.
Meanwhile, two powerful allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin— Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB)—have asserted that they believe Ukraine was involved in the deadly attack, Reuters reported. They, however, offered no evidence for the claims and only cited the alleged attempt by the gunmen to escape towards Ukraine.
Bortnikov said those who had “ordered” the attack on Moscow concert hall had not been identified, the assailants were heading to Ukraine and would have been “greeted as heroes”.
“We believe the action was prepared both by the radical Islamists themselves and, of course, facilitated by Western special services, and Ukraine’s special services themselves have a direct connection to this,” Bortnikov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.
Ukraine has repeatedly denied any involvement and Islamic State, the militant group that once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The terror group on Telegram claimed that the attack was “carried out by four of its members armed with machine guns, a pistol, knives and firebombs” as part of “the raging war” with “countries fighting Islam”.
On Monday, Putin said that radical Islamists had carried out the attack. He further said the attackers were trying to flee to Ukraine. The Russian President questioned why ISIS would want to attack Russia at this particular time without being nudged to by others.
“We know that the crime was carried out by the hand of radical Islamists with an ideology that the Muslim world has fought for centuries,” Putin said. “We want to know who ordered it.”
Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron claimed that Paris had information that the jihadists were responsible and warned Russia against exploiting the attack to blame Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a Moscow court today remanded the eighth suspect in custody over the attack at the Moscow concert hall. Earlier, the authorities in Moscow had announced that they had detained 11 people in connection with the deadly attack.
On Monday, two of the accused pleaded guilty to involvement in the worst atrocity in the capital in more than two decades, the Moscow courts service said on its Telegram channel. It, however, gave no information on pleas by the others detained in connection with the terror attack.
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Published: 26 Mar 2024, 07:56 PM IST
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