Putin vows to ‘punish’ Moscow terrorists who were ‘being helped by Ukraine’

Vladimir Putin has said ‘all four’ gunmen behind last night’s ‘bloody and barbaric terrorist attack’ on a Moscow concert hall have been detained.

The Russian president, addressing the nation, said the attackers had been fleeing towards Ukraine.

He claimed: ‘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.’

Kyiv has strongly denied any involvement, instead accusing the Russians of seeking to use the atrocity to increase support for the ongoing war.

Putin declared tomorrow, March 24, a day of mourning and passed on his condolences to the families of the more than 100 people killed in the country’s deadliest attack in 20 years.

‘Terrorists, killers can expect only one thing, they can expect punishment,’ he said.

‘Our enemies will not divide us.’

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a video address to the nation following a shooting attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue (Picture: Reuters)

The burning Crocus City Hall concert hall following the shooting incident in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow (Picture: AFP via Getty)

Emergency services personnel and law enforcement officers are seen outside the venue (Picture: AFP via Getty)

Gunmen opened fire at a concert hall in a Moscow suburb (Picture: Moskva News Agency/AFP via Getty)

The Kremlin’s insistence on the attack being linked to Ukraine comes despite the Islamic State group having claimed responsibility for it.

US intelligence has also confirmed the group carried it out and said they warned Moscow in advance.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied any involvement.

‘Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods,’ he posted on X.

‘Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.’

A Kalashnikov assault rifle lies on the ground as Russian investigators work inside (Picture: EPA)

Ukraine’s foreign ministry also denied that the country had any involvement and accused Moscow of using the attack to try to stoke fervour for its war efforts.

‘We consider such accusations to be a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society, create conditions for increased mobilization of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community,’ a ministry said in a statement.

Images shared by Russian state media Saturday showed a fleet of emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, which had a maximum capacity of more than 6,000 people.

Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range.

Russian news reports cited authorities and witnesses as saying the attackers also threw explosive devices that started the fire.

The roof of the theatre, where crowds had gathered for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, collapsed early Saturday as firefighters spent hours fighting the blaze.

In a statement posted by its Aamaq news agency, the IS’s Afghanistan affiliate said it had attacked a large gathering of ‘Christians’ in Krasnogorsk.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.

A US intelligence official told the Associated Press that American intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and that US officials had privately shared the intelligence earlier this month with Russian officials.

Messages of outrage, shock and support for the victims and their families have streamed in from around the world.

On Friday, the UN Security Council condemned ‘the heinous and cowardly terrorist attack’ and underlined the need for the perpetrators to be held accountable.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the terrorist attack ‘in the strongest possible terms’, his spokesman said.

Meanwhile hundreds of people stood in line on Saturday in Moscow to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.

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Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, had publicly denounced the Western warnings of a potential terrorist attack as an attempt to intimidate Russians.

‘All that resembles open blackmail and an attempt to frighten and destabilize our society,’ he said earlier this week.

In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacation-goers returning from Egypt.

The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years.

It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

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