Reuters
People line up to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial to the victims of a shooting attack set up outside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow Region, Russia, on March 24, 2024.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that the deadly terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall in suburban Moscow was carried out by radical Islamists, but many questions still remain.
"We know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists, whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries," Putin said at a meeting on measures taken after the terrorist attack.
The Russian president said it is already known who carried out the terrorist attack, but now "we are interested in who ordered the crime."
He said that the United States, through various channels, is trying to convince everyone that there is supposedly no Kyiv trace in the bloody terrorist attack, that it is the Islamic State (ISIS).
However, Putin believes questions still remain. "It is necessary to obtain answers to a number of questions, for example, are radical, even terrorist, Islamic organizations really interested in striking Russia, which today stands for a fair solution to the escalating Middle East conflict," he said.
Putin also noted that it is necessary to answer the question of why the terrorists tried to go to Ukraine after committing a crime in Crocus, and who was waiting for them there.
Calling the attack an act of intimidation, Putin said, "the question arises who benefits from this."
The investigation into the terrorist attack should be carried out to the highest degree professionally, objectively and without political bias, despite the general desire to punish the perpetrators, Putin added.
The death toll from Friday's terrorist attack has risen to 139 after gunmen stormed a concert hall in Moscow, Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, said Monday.
