ISTANBUL

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday there are no signs so far of Ukraine’s involvement in last week’s shooting at the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Krasnogorsk outside Moscow that left at least 139 people dead and over 180 injured.

“We know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists whose ideology the Islamic world itself has been fighting for centuries. But we also see that the US, through various channels, is trying to convince its satellites and other countries of the world that, according to their intelligence data, there is supposedly no trace of Kyiv in the Moscow terrorist attack, that the bloody terrorist attack was carried out by followers of Islam, members of the ISIS organization banned in Russia,” said Putin.

Stressing that Moscow knows “whose hands committed this atrocity,” he said Russia is interested in knowing “who the customer is.”

“More specific, professional questions have to be answered, Putin said, adding the “terrible crime” committed in Moscow is an “intimidation act.”

“The question that arises is who benefits from this? This atrocity may be just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 by the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime. And the Nazis, as is well known, never hesitated to use the most dirty and inhumane means to achieve their goals,” he said.

“Moreover, today, when their advertised counter-offensive has completely failed, this is recognized by everyone and is not disputed. The Russian Armed Forces hold the initiative along the entire line of combat contact, and all the measures taken by the enemy to stabilize the front do not bring success.

“Hence the attempts to enter and gain a foothold in our border territories. Shelling, including using multiple launch rocket systems, of peaceful neighborhoods, civilian objects, including energy infrastructure, in an attempt to launch missile attacks on the Crimean Bridge or the peninsula itself,” he added.

“Bloody acts of intimidation such as the terrorist attack committed in Moscow quite logically fit into this series. The goal, as I already said, is to sow panic in our society and at the same time show our own population that all is not lost for the Kyiv regime,” he said.

“You just need to follow the orders of your Western curators, fight to the last Ukrainian, obey the command from Washington and adopt a new law on mobilization, create something like the Hitler Youth in its new edition, of course,” he added.

Putin said that those backing Kyiv wish to avoid complicity in terrorism and being seen as sponsors of such acts, yet numerous questions remain unanswered.