Russian President Vladimir Putin called what happened in "Crocus" a "bloody act of terrorism" in a televised address to the nation on the occasion of the terrorist attack there, TASS reported.
"I am writing to you regarding the bloody, barbaric act of terrorism that has victimized dozens of peaceful, innocent people, our countrymen, including children, adolescents and women," the president said at the start of his statement. "I declare March 24 a day of national mourning," the head of state said in the nearly 6-minute televised address.
"Regarding the investigation of this crime and the results of the operational-search actions, at the moment the following can be said: all four direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack - all who shot and killed people - have been found and detained. They tried to hide and moved to Ukraine, where, according to preliminary information, a window was prepared for them to cross the state border from the Ukrainian side. A total of 11 people were detained. The Federal Security Service of Russia and other law enforcement agencies are working to identify and expose the entire accomplice base of the terrorists: those who provide them with transportation, plot escape routes from the crime scene, prepare caches, caches of weapons and ammunition. I repeat, the investigative and law enforcement authorities will do everything to establish all the details surrounding the crime.
But it is now obvious that we are facing not just a carefully cynically planned terrorist attack, but a prepared and organized mass murder of peaceful, defenseless people. Criminals cold-bloodedly and purposefully set out to kill, to shoot at point blank range our citizens, our children. Just as the Nazis once carried out massacres in the occupied territories, they decided to stage a show execution, a bloody act of intimidation. All perpetrators, organizers and guarantors of this crime will suffer a just and inevitable punishment. Whoever they are, whoever leads them.
I say again, we will identify and punish all those behind the terrorists who prepared this atrocity, this attack against Russia, against our people. We know what the threat of terrorism is. Here we rely on interaction with all countries that sincerely share our pain and are ready in practice to truly join forces in the fight against the common enemy - international terrorism in all its manifestations. Terrorists, murderers, inhumans who do not and cannot have a nationality, an unenviable fate awaits them - retribution and oblivion. They have no future. Now our common duty: our comrades from the front, all citizens of the country, is to be together in one line. I believe it will be so," Putin noted.
He especially thanked the medical teams and the rescuers "who did everything to save people's lives". in hospitals". /BGNES
