The Russian president Vladimir Putin made his first statements after the massacre at the Crocus Concert Hall saying that all those who organized the attack will be identified and punished while linked the attack to Ukraine Saying that “on the Ukrainian side they were preparing to welcome the men.”

Specifically, addressing the Russian people, Vladimir Putin said: “The organizers of the terrorist attack were preparing a showy execution and a bloody act of intimidation. The Russian Federation will identify and punish all those who prepared the terrorist attack. Only retribution and oblivion await the terrorists, they have no future. The common duty of the Russians now is to be together united, and so it shall be. No one can shake the unity of Russian citizens. Russia has always grown stronger under the toughest of tests, and will continue to do so now. No one will be able to sow poisonous seeds of discord or panic in Russia either. Russian intelligence services are working to identify terrorist accomplices,” Putin said in his statements and added:

“The investigation will do everything to establish all the details of the terrorist attack».

At the same time, he said he was convinced that Russia had arrested all 4 men who carried out the attack and underlined thatAll those arrested were headed for Ukraine.

“All reports so far suggest that the arrests took place in Bryansk, an area southwest of Moscow heading towards the Russia-Ukraine border” he said.

“All four direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack, all who shot and killed people, were found and arrested. They tried to hide and moved to Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a “window” was prepared from the Ukrainian side to cross the state border. A total of 11 people were arrested.

Russia’s Federal Security Service and other law enforcement agencies are working to identify and expose the entire base of terrorists’ accomplices: those who provided them with transportation, who described to them escape routes from the crime scene, who prepared for them caches, warehouses arms and ammunition.”

Referring to the wounded the Russian president said that doctors are fighting to keep them alive while he thanked doctors, firefighters and ordinary citizens who participated in the rescue.

“Doctors are now fighting for the lives of the victims, those who are in serious condition. I am sure they will do everything possible and even impossible to preserve the life and health of all the injured. Special words of gratitude to the ambulance crews, special forces soldiers, firefighters, rescuers who did everything to save people’s lives, get them out from under the fire, from the center of fire and smoke and avoid even greater losses. I cannot ignore the help of ordinary citizens who, in the first minutes after the tragedy, did not remain uninvolved and indifferent and, together with doctors and security officers, provided first aid and delivered the victims to hospitals.”

The Russian president also expressedhis deepest condolences to the families of the victims and declared Sunday, March 24, a day of national mourning.

In closing, Putin said: “I repeat, law enforcement will do everything possible to establish all the details of the crime. But it is already clear that we are faced not only with a carefully planned cynically terrorist attack, but with a premeditated and organized mass killing of peaceful, defenseless people.

The criminals calmly and deliberately started to kill, to shoot at rush hour our citizens, our children. Just as the Nazis once massacred the occupied territories, they decided to stage a show, a bloody act of intimidation. All perpetrators, organizers and clients of this crime will suffer just and inevitable punishment. Whoever they are, whoever guides them. I repeat, we will detect and we will punish all those who stand behind the terrorists, who prepared this atrocity, this attack on Russia, on our people.

We know what the threat of terrorism is. We rely here on interaction with all states that sincerely share our pain and are ready in practice to really join forces in the fight against a common enemy – international terrorism in all its manifestations. Terrorists, murderers, who do not and cannot have citizenship face an enviable fate – retribution and oblivion. They have no future. Our common task now: our comrades at the front, all the citizens of the country, to be together in a formation”.