“All those involved must die” says Medvedev – Four arrested so far in the massacre with 139 dead – Fears of escalating Kremlin attacks

“Everyone is asking me. What should we do? We got them. Well done to everyone who caught them. Do they have to be killed? They have to. And they will be.

But it’s far more important that everyone involved be killed. All of them. Those who paid them, those who sympathized with them, those who helped them. Kill them all.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to punish those responsible for the Moscow concert hall attack, adding that the gunmen “tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine.” pic.twitter.com/SfiX7gaUfR

— DW News (@dwnews) March 25, 2024

With these words, Security Council Vice President and former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev sets the tone for the fate that likely awaits the terrorists arrested for the Crocus City Hall massacre.

Russia continues to mourn the 139 dead – so far – and is seething with rage. The four arrested perpetrators, all Tajik citizens, were brought before a court, where they were charged.

Earlier, of course, as can be seen in videos circulating widely on the Internet, they were subjected to the wrath of the police officers who arrested and interrogated them.

A court in Moscow charged four suspects with acts of terrorism in connection with the attack at a concert at the Crocus City Hall outside the Russian capital. More than 130 people were killed and over 180 were injured https://t.co/CaL3oL4SSJ pic.twitter.com/LOkcVTMwfp

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 24, 2024

In a video released by the paramilitary organisation Wagner, one of the arrested terrorists can be seen naked from the waist down, being subjected to electric shocks to the genitals.

In another video, police officers describe how they cut off the ear of another captured terrorist and forced him to eat it.

For the third, Telegram circulates that Russian security authorities removed one of his eyes during interrogation, while the fourth, who appeared in court with a face swollen from a beating, is shown on video being interrogated with a plastic bag wrapped around his neck.

The four detainees, at least one of whom has reportedly confessed and who will be held in custody until the trial which is expected to begin on 22 May, were announced by Russian authorities as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov.

Meanwhile and after the posting of the horrific video of the cowardly killings of innocent civilians by the ISIS offshoot, ISIS-K proving its involvement in the Crocus City Hall massacre and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, for the first time referred to radical Islamist terrorists.

But he again implied that Ukrainians were behind the bloodbath – a claim that Ukraine categorically rejects.

Putin has admitted that attack in Crocus hall has been committed by radical islamists, BUT anyway attempting to falsely blame Ukraine

Putin claims that the people behind islamic radicals, are the same who fighting Russia since 2014 with Ukrainian hands https://t.co/nmcR55ASOK pic.twitter.com/UkRoXUrayN

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) March 25, 2024

Vladimir Putin said that the Moscow massacre was “a continuation of the Kiev Nazi attacks”, promising the Russian people that an investigation would be carried out into who gave the orders and that investigations would continue, pointing out once again that the Tajik terrorists who were arrested wanted to flee to Ukraine.

“It was part of the intimidation that they are carrying out on us and part of the attack that the Kiev Nazis have been organising against Russia since 2014,” Putin said of the terrorist attack.

“We are interested in who benefits from it,” he said.

“This atrocity may be just a link in a series of attempts since 2014 by the hands of the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev,” the Russian president also said, who also took swipes at the United States, which he scathingly said “is trying to convince everyone that there is supposedly no Ukrainian trace in this crime, that ISIS is behind it.”

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The question now is what developments in the shadow of the atrocity.

First of all, it is a question of whether Russia is facing a new problem, a new generation of terrorists from Tajikistan – a poor post-Soviet country of 10 million people sandwiched between Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and China, whose citizens usually work in manual labor as immigrants in Russia – coming in, but more importantly, whether this attack will mark a new phase in the war in Ukraine.

The Russian president’s next moves and the future of the war in Ukraine are of increasing concern to international analysts who are expressing anxiety about an escalation of attacks by the Kremlin that could potentially use the Moscow massacre as an excuse to further aggravate relations with Ukraine.

Putin’s insistence on Ukrainian meddling, moreover, clearly points in this direction…