• All four suspects apprehended, nine others arrested
Russia President Vladimir Putin declared yesterday that retribution and oblivion awaited the brains behind Friday’s attack on a Moscow concert which has so far claimed over 130 lives.
“Terrorists, murderers, non-humans … have only one unenviable fate: Retribution and oblivion,” Putin said in a televised address to the nation.
He announced a day of mourning for today and said dozens of peaceful, innocent people were victims of the Crocus attack
He claimed those who carried out the “bloody and barbaric terrorist attack” tried to escape and cross into Ukraine.
He said: “All four direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack, all those who shot and killed people, were found and detained.
“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
Ukraine which has been locked in a bloody war with Russia dismissed any suggestion of its involvement in the attack as absurd.
Russian Telegram channels, including Baza which is close to the security services, and a lawmaker said some of the suspects were from Tajikistan, a post-Soviet country in Central Asia.
Tajikistan’s foreign ministry told Russia’s TASS news agency that authorities were “in close contact” with Moscow about the “supposed participation of the country’s citizens in the terrorist attack.”
The four suspects were stopped in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said.
They allegedly planned to cross the border into Ukraine and “had contacts” there, state news agency Tass said, citing Russia’s FSB.
The attack came just days after Putin’s reelection in a landslide. It is regarded as the deadliest in Russia in years.
Images shared by Russian state media yesterday showed a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, which had a capacity of more than 6,000 people in Krasnogorsk, on Moscow’s western edge.
Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. The roof of the theater, where crowds had gathered Friday for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning as firefighters spent hours fighting a fire that erupted during the attack.
In a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim..
Foreign Affairs Minister , Yusuf Tuggar in a statement expressed Nigeria’s heartfelt condolences, and assured Moscow of its support.
Tuggar said: “We convey our deepest condolences to the people and Government of the Russian Federation on the tragic attack carried out at the Crocus Concert Hall in Moscow that resulted in the death of innocent people and injuries to more than a hundred others.
“The Government and people of Nigeria commiserate with the victims of this tragic attack and pray for the repose of their souls.
“We also pray for the quick recovery of those injured.
“At this challenging time, we stand in brotherhood with the government and Russian Federation and send our deepest sympathy and condolences to the Russian president, His Excellency Vladimir Putin.”
The U.N. Security Council condemned “the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack” and underlined the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack “in the strongest possible terms.”
