| See also here and here. |
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
said Saturday during an address to the nation.
Kyiv, meanwhile, strongly denied
No, no! Certainly not!
any involvement in Friday’s attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, which the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group’s affiliate in Afghanistan grabbed credit for in a statement posted on social media channels linked to the group. Kyiv accused Putin and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault in order to stoke fervor in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.
A U.S. intelligence official told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that U.S. agencies had confirmed that IS was responsible for the assault and had previously warned Moscow that an attack could be imminent.
Putin said authorities have detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also injured scores of concertgoers and left the venue a smoldering ruin. He called it "a bloody, barbaric terrorist act" and said Russian authorities captured the four suspected button men as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a "window" prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.
Putin also said that additional security measures have been imposed throughout Russia, and he declared Sunday a day of mourning.
The attack, the deadliest in Russia in years, is a major embarrassment to the Russian leader and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.
Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who have relentlessly suppressed any opposition activities and muzzled independent media, failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warnings.
| To be fair, a warning that something is going to happen is not exactly actionable. And is it any likelier that Russian authorities would believe an American warning than the Americans believed Russian warning about the Tsarnaev brothers? |
Investigators on Saturday were combing through the charred wreckage of the hall for more victims, and authorities said the corpse count could still rise. Hundreds of people stood in line in Moscow early Saturday to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.
"We faced not just a thoroughly and cynically prepared terror attack, but a well-prepared and organized mass murder of peaceful innocent people," Putin said.
His claim that the attackers tried to flee to Ukraine followed comments by Russian politicians who pointed the finger at Ukraine immediately after the attack. But Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied any involvement.