The Kremlin refuses to comment on the possible responsibility of ISIS terrorists in the Crocus City Hall massacre, saying that the investigation is ongoing.
“You are asking a question regarding the progress of the investigation. We do not comment on this in any way, we have no right to do so. Here, of course, we urge you to rely on the information that comes from our law enforcement agencies,” he said Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, according to Tass. Peskov added that President Vladimir Putin has no plans to visit the site of the attack.
The Kremlin spokesperson, on the other hand, did not answer a question “about visible signs of violence”, and therefore about possible torture, on the four people arrested on suspicion of the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall. This was reported by CNN, which asked the question. “I leave this question unanswered,” Peskov said. Asked about the possibility of contacts between Moscow and Western countries regarding the terrorist attack, Peskov stressed that “there are no contacts with the West at the moment.”
The spokesperson also evaded a question asking whether the Crocus City Hall massacre represents a failure of the Russian intelligence services. “Currently there is a lot of emotional, hysterical and provocative content online. Clearly, this monstrous tragedy causes a lot of emotions, but unfortunately our world shows that no city or country can be completely immune to the threat of terrorism,” Peskov responded. After the massacre at the Crocus City Hall the Kremlin spokesperson warned Russians against recruitment attempts on social media by terrorist groups. The spokesperson, quoted by the Tass agency, underlined that he was not referring to Telegram channels which “provide serious information and verified” but “rather to anonymous profiles”. Law enforcement agencies are on alert to combat this type of activity, he added, but “people must be vigilant and aware of the threat of such provocative acts”. In a first summary interrogation of which a video was released, one of the four arrested on charges of being the perpetrators of the Moscow attack said he had been recruited after following “a preacher's lessons” online.
For his part, the former president and vice-president of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, reopened the debate on the reinstatement of the death penalty for terrorism: “Everyone is asking me. What to do? – he said – They were captured. Congratulations to those who caught them. Should they be killed? It is necessary. And it will be. But it is much more important to kill all the people involved. Everyone. Those who paid, those who sympathized, those who helped. We must kill them all.” The four alleged perpetrators of the attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow, which killed 137 people, have been placed in pre-trial detention for two months by a court in the Russian capital. The four are accused of “terrorism” and face life imprisonment, the Basmanny court in Moscow said in a statement. Their pre-trial detention, set until May 22, may be extended pending trial, the date of which has not yet been set.