Russia mourns deadly Moscow terror attack that claimed 133 lives
Interfax reported. Islamist groups have targeted Russia in the past citing what they call anti-Muslim policies by the Kremlin. The seizure of a school in Beslan in the south of the country led to more than 330 fatalities, many of them children, in 2004.
In 2010, twin suicide attacks in Moscow subway stations killed at least 40, while a suicide bombing killed 16, including the attacker, in the St. Petersburg subway in 2017. Moscow has been largely insulated from the direct effects of Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which his spokesman Dmitry Peskov called “a state of war" for the first time on Friday.
He later walked back the comment. “The obvious route for the Kremlin to spin this is that it’s something to do with the war in Ukraine," said Charles Lichfield, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center in Washington. “The immediate response could be more drone attacks and ballistic attacks, but they already increased before the terrorist attacks." In his daily video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Putin of “simply trying to put the blame on somebody else." Russia continued strikes targeting several Ukrainian regions on Saturday.
Four Russian missiles and 34 drones were fired at Ukraine overnight and air defences shot down 31 Shahed drones in five regions, according to a Ukrainian statement on Telegram. Moscow’s forces have stepped up missile strikes against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure in recent weeks, killing dozens of civilians. Early Friday, it unleashed the biggest missile and drone assault on Ukraine so far this year, focused on energy infrastructure.
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