On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to track down and punish those responsible for the shooting that claimed the lives of more than 100 and injured another 100 at a concert hall near Moscow.
“All the perpetrators, organizers, and those who ordered this crime will be justly and inevitably punished. Whoever they are, whoever is guiding them,” Putin said in a televised address. “We will identify and punish everyone who stands behind the terrorists, who prepared this atrocity, this strike against Russia, against our people.”
Four gunmen have been arrested in the days since Friday’s shooting, and the militant Islamist group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the massacre, but Russia has said it believes Ukraine was somehow involved.
Kyiv has denied Ukraine being a part of the attack.
Russia’s state Investigative committee shared that 133 people were killed in the shooting, and Putin said in a televised address that 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen.
“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Putin said.
The FSB security service claimed that the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the country’s border but were transferred back to Moscow after the attack.
However, despite claims of the connection, proof has yet to be provided publicly.
Andriy Yusov, a Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman, told Reuters that the country did conduct a terror attack in Russia.
“Ukraine was, of course, not involved in this terror attack. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty from Russian invaders, liberating its own territory, and is fighting with the occupiers’ army and military targets, not civilians,” Yusov said.
The United States commented on the attack over the weekend, saying that terrorism of any kind should be condemned.
“We condemn terrorism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the people of Russia in grieving the loss of life from this horrific event,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Russia has made an enemy of IS, having intervened in the Syrian civil war against the terror group in 2015. A security analyst shared with Reuters that the attack fit patterns of previous attacks, a sign the claim was possible.