Vladimir Putin discusses Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky accuses the Russian president of “blaming” his country

“What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious: Putin and the other bastards are just trying to shift the blame to someone else,” the Ukrainian president said in his daily message

A new subject of opposition between the two men. Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Saturday March 23 to “to punish” those responsible for the attack which left 133 dead in the suburbs of Moscow the day before, ensuring that the attackers had been arrested on their way to Ukraine and not mentioning the claim of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

This attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall, in the close suburbs of the capital, is the deadliest in the country in twenty years, as well as the bloodiest to have been claimed by ISIS in Europe.

Ukrainian denial

These four alleged perpetrators of the attack, all “foreign citizens”, were arrested in the Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine and Belarus, according to the authorities. The security services (FSB) claimed that the suspects had “proper contacts on the Ukrainian side” and intended to flee to this country, without providing further details on the nature of these links or proof of their existence.

The head of public media RT, Margarita Simonian, published videos purporting to show confessions of two suspects during their interrogations, in which they do not name a sponsor. AFP was unable to confirm their veracity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused his Russian counterpart of seeking to “shift the blame” on Ukraine. “What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious: Putin and the other bastards are just trying to shift the blame to someone else”said Volodymyr Zelensky in his daily message. “Ukraine has not the slightest link with the incident”had already hammered the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, rejecting accusations “absurd”.