Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has honored the two Russian embassy workers who were killed by a suicide bomber in the Afghan capital of Kabul by holding a minute of silence.
The attack outside the Russian mission happened earlier on Monday. The explosion is believed to have claimed the lives of two dozen people.
“Speaking about the situation in the region, the terrorist threat hasn’t dissipated, including from Afghanistan,” Lavrov noted during talks with his Tajik counterpart Sirojiddin Muhriddin in Moscow.
Tajikistan and Afghanistan are neighbors, sharing a border that is almost 1,400km long.
“And this morning… there was a terrorist attack. An unknown militant used an explosive device near the entrance to the consulate of our embassy [in Kabul]. Two of our comrades died,” he said.
Security has been tightened at the embassy in Kabul in the wake of the deadly blast, with “intelligence officers of Afghanistan also helping,” according to the Russian foreign minister.
“Let’s hope that those who perpetrated that attack, those who executed this attack will be held responsible in the nearest future,” he added.
Lavrov then asked for a minute of silence for the slain embassy workers, with members of both delegations standing to honor them.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said that, according to preliminary data, the killed embassy staff were an assistant secretary and a security guard.
Russia has been among the few nations to maintain a diplomatic mission in Kabul since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan a year ago.