Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy angrily rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that Kyiv was linked to the attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130 people.
In a video statement and written post on X, Zelenksyy responded to Putin’s Saturday night address to the nation in which the Russian leader said his authorities arrested four suspects caught attempting to flee to Ukraine in the aftermath of Friday’s assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk.
Zelenskyy argued Putin and his lieutenants were “scum” for attempting to shift the blame to Ukraine, while the “miserable” Russian leader was treating his own people as “expendables,” the BBC reported.
“What happened in Moscow yesterday is obvious, and Putin and other scums are trying to shift the blame to someone else. Their methods are always the same. We have seen it all before,” Zelenskyy wrote. “They came to Ukraine, burned down our cities, and then tried to blame Ukraine. They torture and rape people – and then blame them. They have brought hundreds of thousands of their terrorists to Ukrainian territory, and they are waging war against us, but they don’t care about what happens inside their own country.”
“All of this happened yesterday, and instead of taking care of his Russian citizens and addressing them, this duffer Putin remained silent for a day, thinking about how to link this to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy continued, “Everything is entirely predictable. Those hundreds of thousands of Russians who are now killing on Ukrainian soil would certainly be enough to deter any terrorists. And if Russians are willing to die quietly in ‘crocuses’ and not question their special services, Putin will try to exploit more of these situations for personal power. Terrorists must always lose.”
Kyiv strongly denied any involvement, and the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility. The U.S. government said its intelligence also supports that ISIS was behind the attack.
