On Friday, men in camouflage clothing broke into a Moscow concert hall and opened fire, fatally shooting an unknown number of people, injuring several others.
Reports now say the death toll in the incident has now risen to 133. Officials have said more than 100 others were injured.
President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has said the Friday concert attack is a barbaric act of terrorism, vowing to punish the perpetrators.
He made these known in a public address he delivered on Saturday in Moscow, Russia’s capital.
Several Russian media outlets reported that automatic weapons were used in what many have termed ‘one of the worst such attacks in Russia in years.’
At least five gunmen were shown in unverified videos firing repeatedly at screaming civilians cowering in the concert hall as Soviet-era rock group “Picnic” was about to perform, according to Reuters.
Reacting, Putin, in a five-minute televised address, claimed that someone in Ukraine had tried to help the attackers escape across the border from Russia before they were apprehended by Russian security services.
He did not definitively pin the attack on Ukraine, nor did he refer to the assessment by American officials that a branch of the Islamic State was behind it.
He said: “They were trying to hide and were moving toward Ukraine,” Mr. Putin said, referring to the four men who carried out the attack and who the Kremlin said had been captured in western Russia. “Based on preliminary information, a window for crossing the border was prepared for them by the Ukrainian side.”
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly denied having anything to do with the attack, and American officials have said there is no evidence of Ukrainian involvement.
American officials voiced concern on Friday that Putin could seek to falsely blame Ukraine for the attack, and some analysts and Kremlin critics have said that he could use such an accusation to justify another escalation in Russia’s invasion.
“We are counting here on cooperation with all countries that genuinely share our pain and are ready, in their deeds, to truly unite our efforts in the fight against the common enemy of international terrorism,” he added.
Photo: Maxim Shemetov / Reuters