Russian investigators have confirmed that there is a link between the perpetrators of last month’s terrorist attack in Moscow and Ukrainian nationalists, the secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev has said.
He reiterated Moscow’s suspicions about Ukraine’s role in the Crocus City Hall atrocity, in which over 140 people were killed.
“During the investigation, the link between the perpetrator of this terrorist attack and Ukrainian nationalists has been confirmed,” Patrushev said during a meeting of the body.
Four suspected gunmen were arrested in a Russian region bordering Ukraine hours after the mass murder they are accused of committing. Russian officials previously described them as radical Islamists and claimed that a money trail connected them to Ukrainian nationalists. The group was instructed by their handler to flee across the border, investigators have claimed.
Patrushev reiterated his country’s pledge to hold every person responsible for the crime accountable.
”The perpetrators, accomplices and organizers of the monstrous bloody terrorist attack, affiliated individuals, wherever they hide and however they try to cover their tracks, will face deserved punishment,” he said.
Kiev, which initially claimed that Moscow itself had staged the massacre, has denied any involvement. Its Western backers maintain that all evidence they have is pointing to ISIS-K, an Afghanistan-based offshoot of the once-powerful international terrorist organization Islamic State, as the culprit. The group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Moscow has accused Kiev of being behind a number of targeted assassinations and bombing attacks on its soil, some of which Ukrainian special services have acknowledged as their operations. According to Russian officials, Ukraine is resorting to terrorism because it cannot prevail on the battlefield even with the unprecedented amount of Western assistance it has been receiving.