MOSCOW (AP) — Russian officials on Tuesday continued to claim Ukraine and the West had a role in the deadly Moscow concert hall attack last week, even though Kyiv denied involvement and an affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, without presenting any evidence, echoed similar accusations by President Vladimir Putin, who connected the attack to Ukraine while acknowledging that the arrested suspects were “radical Islamists.”
The IS affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack, and U.S. intelligence confirmed the group's involvement. French President Emmanuel Macron also said France has intelligence suggesting that an IS entity was responsible for the attack.
Despite indications pointing to IS, Putin insisted on alleged Ukrainian involvement — a claim rejected by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who accused the Kremlin leader of trying to incite fervor as his forces fight in Ukraine.
Bortnikov claimed that Western spy agencies could also have been involved in the deadliest terror attack on Russian soil in two decades, while acknowledging receiving a U.S. tip about the attack.
“We believe that radical Islamists carried out the action, with assistance from Western special services and direct involvement from Ukrainian special services,” Bortnikov said without providing details.
He reiterated Putin’s statement that the four gunmen were attempting to flee to Ukraine when they were apprehended, presenting it as evidence of Ukrainian involvement.
However, Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko slightly undermined that assertion, stating Tuesday that the suspects were heading for Ukraine because they feared tight controls on the Belarus border.
Russia is still grappling with the attack on Friday, in which gunmen killed 139 people at the Crocus City Hall, a concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow. Health officials reported that about 90 people are still in the hospital, with 22 of them, including two children, in critical condition.
The four men accused of carrying out the attack appeared in a Moscow court on Sunday to face terrorism charges and displayed signs of severe beatings. One of them seemed barely conscious during the hearing.
Authorities stated that the men are citizens of Tajikistan and were identified as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19. They have been charged with committing a terrorist attack resulting in death, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
A senior Turkish security official confirmed on Tuesday that two of them spent a brief period of time in Turkey before traveling together to Russia on March 2.
One of the suspects, Fariduni, entered Turkey on Feb. 20, checked into a hotel in Istanbul’s Fatih district the following day, and checked out on Feb. 27, the official said. The other, Rachabalizoda, checked into a hotel in the same district on Jan. 5 and checked out on Jan. 21.
The person in charge said Turkish authorities think the two people became radicalized in Russia because they were not in Turkey for a long time. There was no warrant for their arrest so they were allowed to travel freely between Russia and Turkey, the person said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to make public statements.
The Islamic State group, which lost a lot of its territory after Russia’s military action in Syria, has always targeted Russia. In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS brought down a Russian passenger plane over the Sinai desert, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacationers 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 unstable Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
On Monday, Putin warned that more attacks could happen, alleging possible Western involvement. He didn’t mention the warning about a possible imminent terrorist attack that the U.S. shared confidentially with Moscow two weeks before the raid.
Three days before the attack, Putin criticized the U.S. Embassy’s March 7 notice urging Americans to avoid crowds in Moscow, including concerts, calling it an attempt to scare Russians and “blackmail” the Kremlin ahead of the presidential election.
Bortnikov said Russia was grateful for the warning but described it as very general.
“The information about preparations for terror attacks in large gatherings of people was of a general nature,” he said. “Of course, we reacted to that information and took corresponding measures to prevent such incidents.”
He added that the FSB acted on the tip, targeting a group of suspects he didn’t identify but which eventually proved false.
“We are grateful, of course, but we would like to see more specifics,” Bortnikov said.
__
Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed.
