MOSCOW, Mar 26: Russia on Tuesday sought to shift blame for the Moscow concert hall attack onto Ukraine and its Western backers, despite the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the massacre of at least 139 people.
The Kremlins 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 Kremlins offensive on the country.
The head of Russias FSB security agency Alexander Bortnikov said Tuesday that while those who had "ordered" the attack had not been identified, the assailants were heading to Ukraine and would have been "greeted as heroes".
"We believe the action was prepared both by the radical Islamists themselves and, of course, facilitated by Western special services, and Ukraines special services themselves have a direct connection to this," Bortnikov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.
Ukraine has fiercely rejected any accusations from Moscow that it was tied to the assault, with a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the Kremlin was looking to cover up the "incompetence" of its intelligence agencies.
Russias closest international ally, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, appeared to undermine the Kremlins main narrative -- saying that the attackers tried to enter his country first before heading to Ukraine.
"There was no way they could enter Belarus. They saw that. Thats why they turned away and went to the section of the Ukrainian-Russian border," he said.
The Kremlin has expressed confidence in the countrys powerful security agencies, despite questions swirling over how they failed to thwart the massacre after public and private warnings from the United States.
Islamic State jihadists have said several times since Friday that they were responsible, and IS-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said Paris had information that the jihadists were responsible and warned Russia against exploiting the attack to blame Ukraine.
The concert hall massacre was a major blow for Putin just over a week after he claimed a new term after one-sided elections the Kremlin billed as an endorsement of his military operation against Ukraine. —AFP
