KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of seeking to “shift the blame” onto Kyiv for the Moscow concert hall attack that killed 133 people.
“What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious: Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else,” Zelensky announced, after Putin said the suspects had been fleeing toward Ukraine.
“They always have the same methods,” Zelensky added.
In a televised address earlier Saturday, President Putin said the four gunmen arrested for the deadly attack were “traveling toward Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
Kyiv has angrily dismissed the claims by the Russian leader, which come more than two years after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
“That low-life Putin, instead of dealing with his Russian citizens, addressing them, was silent for a day, thinking about how to bring it to Ukraine,” Zelensky said.
“Everything is absolutely predictable.”
The Moscow attack has been claimed by the Daesh group.
It was the deadliest attack in Russia for almost two decades and the deadliest in Europe to have been claimed by Daesh.
Putin made no reference to the group’s claims of responsibility in his address.
Putin wants to blame Ukraine for Moscow attack: Zelensky
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Putin wants to blame Ukraine for Moscow attack: Zelensky
- “What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious: Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else,” Zelensky announced
- Kyiv has angrily dismissed the claims by the Russian leader
Pakistani Taliban kill six soldiers in checkpoint attack
- Pakistan has faced a surge in militant attacks along its border regions since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Pakistani Taliban militants stormed a security checkpoint in Pakistan’s northwestern border area with Afghanistan, killing six soldiers and wounding four others, a government official said Tuesday.
Pakistan has faced a surge in militant attacks along its border regions since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021.
It accuses Afghanistan of harboring the insurgents, a claim the Taliban government denies.
Late Monday, more than a dozen armed men attacked the checkpoint, leading to a heavy exchange of fire in Kurram, a tribal district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Six security personnel were martyred and four were injured, while two militants were also killed in the fighting,” the government official posted in Kurram, who was not authorized to speak to the media, told AFP on the condition of anonymity.
The Pakistani Taliban group, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has long been active in the region, and claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan accuses the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan of sheltering TTP militants and allowing them to launch cross-border attacks from there — a charge Kabul denies.
The border between the two countries has been closed since the clashes in October, though Pakistan said last week it would allow UN aid supplies to pass to Afghanistan soon.
The attack comes days after an exchange of gunfire and shelling between Afghan and Pakistani forces at a major border crossing that killed four civilians and one soldier, according to Afghanistan.
Each side accused the other of starting the fighting.
