Afghanistan-based IS Khorasan has claimed responsibility for Friday’s bloody terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow. Vladimir Putin has avoided commenting on the data and has claimed this weekend that traces of the attack lead to Ukraine.
But in a televised speech on Monday evening, the Russian president said that the terrorist attack was carried out by “radical Islamists” and that the attack was an act of intimidation.
Terror attack in Moscow
Increased security in Europe after the terrorist attack in Moscow
That is why IS wants to attack Russia
– We know that the crime was committed by radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has fought for centuries, he says.
In the same statement, he also said that the terrorist attack in Moscow is also part of Ukraine’s attacks on Russia.
– Of course, it is necessary to answer the question why, after committing the crime, the terrorists tried to get to Ukraine? Who was waiting for them there?
Ukraine: Absolutely nothing to do with the attack
After the deed, Ukraine’s presidential office quickly came out and denied that the country was involved.
“Let’s be clear, Ukraine had absolutely nothing to do with these events,” Mykhailo Podoljak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on Telegram.
The White House in Washington was also quick to emphasize that the attack was horrific but that there are no indications that Ukraine was behind the attack.
139 people have died and 97 have been injured in the terrorist act according to the Russian state-controlled newspaper RT.