‘Death for death’: Terrorists must be ‘mercilessly destroyed’ – Medvedev

The perpetrators and organizers of Friday’s terrorist attack at a Moscow concert venue must be hunted down without mercy, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has insisted.

At least 133 people have been killed and over 120 wounded when several men armed with assault rifles opened fire inside the Crocus City Hall and then proceeded to set the concert venue on fire. 

Medvedev is currently deputy chair of the National Security Council. In a Telegram post on Friday evening, he sent condolences to the families of those killed and encouragement to the relatives of the wounded.

“Terrorists understand only terror in response. No trials or investigations will help if force is not countered with force, and deaths with executions of terrorists and a crackdown on their families,” he wrote, noting this was “the way of the world.”

“If these terrorists turn out to be the Kiev regime, we can’t deal with them and their ideological inspirers differently. All of them must be found and mercilessly destroyed as terrorists – including officials of the state that committed such an atrocity,” he added.

“Death for death.”

Medvedev’s words echoed the line by Russian President Vladimir Putin, voiced in 1999, when he was a newly appointed prime minister about to launch a counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.

“We are going to pursue terrorists everywhere,” Putin said at the time. “If we find them in the toilet, then we will waste them in the outhouse.”

Reminiscing about it in 2011, Putin said the phrasing he used may have been “unpleasant,” but the sentiment behind it was honest and correct.