Russia points finger at Kyiv and West over Moscow gun attack

• President Vladimir Putin acknowledges that “radical Islamists” carried out the attack but links it to Ukraine.
• Despite warnings from the US, Russia expresses confidence in its security agencies.
• A court in Moscow remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack.

On Tuesday, Russia attempted to shift blame for the Moscow concert hall attack onto Ukraine and its Western backers, despite the Daesh group claiming responsibility for the massacre of at least 139 people. The Kremlin’s security services have been scrambling to explain how gunmen on Friday managed to carry out the worst attack in Russia in over two decades.

President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that “radical Islamists” conducted the bloody assault but suggested they were linked to Ukraine, two years into the Kremlin’s offensive on the country. The head of Russia’s FSB security agency, Alexander Bortnikov, stated on Tuesday that while they had not identified those who had “ordered” the attack, the assailants were heading to Ukraine and would have been “greeted as heroes.”

“Radical Islamists themselves prepared the action, and Western special services, along with Ukraine’s own special services, of course, facilitated it,” Russian news agencies cited Bortnikov as saying.

Ukraine fiercely rejected any accusations from Moscow tying it to the assault, with a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky stating that the Kremlin was seeking to cover up the “incompetence” of its intelligence agencies.

Despite public and private warnings from the United States, the Kremlin expressed confidence in the country’s powerful security agencies, despite questions swirling over how they failed to thwart the massacre.

Daesh militants have asserted multiple times since Friday that they were responsible, and Daesh-affiliated media channels have disseminated graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue. On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that Paris had information indicating the militants were responsible and cautioned Russia against exploiting the attack to blame Ukraine.

The concert hall massacre dealt a significant blow to Putin just over a week after he secured a new term following one-sided elections the Kremlin portrayed as an endorsement of his military operation against Ukraine.

On Monday, Putin stated for the first time that “radical Islamists” were behind last week’s attack but attempted to link it to Kyiv. Without providing any evidence, Putin associated the attack at Crocus City Hall with a series of incursions into Russian territory by pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups, asserting they were all part of efforts to “sow panic in our society.”

Meanwhile, a court in Moscow on Tuesday remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack at the Moscow concert hall. Earlier, Moscow announced it had detained 11 people in connection with the attack, during which camouflaged gunmen stormed into Crocus City Hall, opened fire on concert-goers, and set the building ablaze.

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