MOSCOW: Russia on Tuesday sought to shift blame for the Moscow concert hall attack onto Ukraine and its Western backers, despite the Daesh group claiming responsibility for the massacre of at least 139 people.
The Kremlin’s security services have been scrambling to explain how gunmen on Friday managed to carry out the worst attack in Russia in over two decades.
President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that “radical Islamists” conducted the bloody assault, but suggested they were linked to Ukraine, two years into the Kremlin’s offensive on the country.
The head of Russia’s FSB security agency Alexander Bortnikov said Tuesday that while those who had “ordered” the attack had not been identified, the assailants were heading to Ukraine and would have been “greeted as heroes.”
“We believe the action was prepared both by the radical Islamists themselves and, of course, facilitated by Western special services, and Ukraine’s special services themselves have a direct connection to this,” Bortnikov was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.
Ukraine has fiercely rejected any accusations from Moscow that it was tied to the assault, with a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the Kremlin was looking to cover up the “incompetence” of its intelligence agencies.
The Kremlin has expressed confidence in the country’s powerful security agencies, despite questions swirling over how they failed to thwart the massacre after public and private warnings from the United States.
Daesh militants have said several times since Friday that they were responsible, and Daesh-affiliated media channels have published graphic videos of the gunmen inside the venue.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said Paris had information that the militants were responsible and warned Russia against exploiting the attack to blame Ukraine.
The concert hall massacre was a major blow for Putin just over a week after he claimed a new term after one-sided elections the Kremlin billed as an endorsement of his military operation against Ukraine.
Putin on Monday said for the first time that “radical Islamists” were behind last week’s attack, but sought to tie it to Kyiv.
Without providing any evidence, Putin connected the attack at Crocus City Hall to a series of incursions into Russian territory by pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups, and said they were all part of efforts to “sow panic in our society.”
A court in Moscow meanwhile on Tuesday remanded an eighth suspect in custody over the attack at the Moscow concert hall.
Moscow earlier announced it had detained 11 people in connection with the attack, which saw camouflaged gunmen storm into Crocus City Hall, open fire on concert-goers and set the building ablaze.
The court’s press service said the latest suspect to be remanded was a man originally from the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.
Officials said he was ordered to be held in detention until at least May 22, without detailing the exact accusations against him.
Four men charged on Sunday with carrying out the attack are citizens of Tajikistan, also in mainly Muslim Central Asia.
Three more suspects — reportedly from the same family and including at least one Russian citizen — were charged on terror-related offenses on Monday.
A Turkish official said two of the Tajik suspects had traveled “freely between Russia and Turkiye” ahead of the attack.
The two had both spent time in Turkiye shortly before the attack and entered Russia together on the same flight from Istanbul, the official said.
All of those held in custody have been charged with terrorism and face up to life in prison.
The Kremlin has so far pushed back at suggestions the death penalty will be re-introduced after the attack.
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Russia blames Kyiv, West over Moscow gun attack
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Russia blames Kyiv, West over Moscow gun attack
- The head of Russia’s FSB security agency Alexander Bortnikov said Tuesday that while those who had “ordered” the attack had not been identified, the assailants were heading to Ukraine
- “Ukraine’s special services themselves have a direct connection to this,” Bortnikov was cited as saying
‘No ICE’: Thousands protest in Minnesota and across US against immigration crackdown
- Protesters brave freezing cold to demonstrate in Minneapolis
- ICE given broader power to arrest people without a warrant — NYT
MINNEAPOLIS: Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis and students across the United States staged walkouts on Friday to demand the withdrawal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota following the fatal shootings of two US citizens.
Students and teachers abandoned classes from California to New York on a national day of protest, which came amid mixed messages from the Trump administration about whether it would de-escalate Operation Metro Surge.
Under a national immigration crackdown, President Donald Trump has sent 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis area who are patrolling the streets in tactical gear, a force five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department.
Protesting the surge and the tactics used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, several thousand people gathered in downtown Minneapolis in sub-freezing temperatures, including families with small kids, elderly couples and young activists.
Katia Kagan, wearing a “No ICE” sweatshirt and holding a sign demanding the agency leave the city, said she was the daughter of Russian Jews who immigrated to America seeking safety and a better life.
“I’m out here because I’m going to fight for the American dream that my parents came here for,” Kagan said.
Kim, a 65-year-old meditation coach who asked that her last name not be used, called the surge a “full-on fascist attack of our federal government on citizens.”
In a Minneapolis neighborhood near the sites where Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two US citizens, were fatally shot this month by federal immigration agents, about 50 teachers and staff members from local schools turned out to march.
Rock star Bruce Springsteen lent his voice to the protest, taking the stage at a fundraiser for Good and Pretti in downtown Minneapolis and playing his new song “Streets of Minneapolis.”
Protests stretched well beyond Minnesota as organizers forecast 250 demonstrations across 46 states and in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington under the slogan, “No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE.”
Trump in turn offered a vote of confidence for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees ICE. Critics have called for her resignation but Trump said on social media that Noem “has done a really GREAT JOB!,” asserting that “The Border disaster that I inherited is fixed.”
Local FBI chief forced out
Meanwhile, events in Minneapolis reverberated through the federal government.
The acting head of the Minneapolis FBI field office, Jarrad Smith, was removed from his post, according to two sources familiar with the move. Smith was reassigned to FBI headquarters in Washington, according to one of the sources.
The Minneapolis field office has been involved in the federal surge as well as investigations into the Pretti shooting and a church protest that led to charges against former CNN anchor Don Lemon.
The FBI arrested Lemon on Friday and the Justice Department charged him with violating federal law during a protest inside a St. Paul, Minnesota, church earlier this month in what his lawyer called an attack on press freedom.
After pleading not guilty, Lemon told reporters, “I will not be silenced. I look forward to my day in court.”
The New York Times, citing an internal ICE memo it reviewed, reported on Friday that federal agents were told this week they have broader power to arrest people without a warrant, expanding the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up suspected undocumented immigrants they encounter.
Backlash against the administration’s immigration policy also threatened to spark a partial US government shutdown as Democrats in Congress opposed funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
Public opinion shifts
Weeks of viral videos showing the aggressive tactics of heavily armed and masked agents on the streets of Minneapolis have driven public approval of Trump’s immigration policy to the lowest level of his second term, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
As uproar over the ICE operation grew, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, was dispatched to Minneapolis, saying his officers would return to more targeted operations, rather than the broad street sweeps that have led to clashes with protesters.
Echoing protesters’ sentiments, Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz on Friday questioned whether that would happen and said more drastic changes were needed.
“The only way to ensure the safety of the people of Minnesota is for the federal government to draw down their forces and end this campaign of brutality,” Walz said on X.
Trump said earlier this week he wanted to “de-escalate a bit,” but when asked by reporters on Thursday if he was pulling back, Trump said: “Not at all.”
In Aurora, Colorado, public schools closed on Friday due to large, anticipated teacher and student absences. The Denver suburb saw intense immigration raids last year after Trump claimed it was a “war zone” overrun by Venezuelan gangs.
In Tucson, Arizona, at least 20 schools canceled classes in anticipation of mass absences.
At DePaul University in Chicago, protest signs read “sanctuary campus” and “fascists not welcome here.”
High school students bearing anti-ICE signs staged a walkout in Long Beach, California. In Brooklyn, a long parade of high-school-age protesters marched and chanted anti-ICE obscenities.
Students and teachers abandoned classes from California to New York on a national day of protest, which came amid mixed messages from the Trump administration about whether it would de-escalate Operation Metro Surge.
Under a national immigration crackdown, President Donald Trump has sent 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis area who are patrolling the streets in tactical gear, a force five times the size of the Minneapolis Police Department.
Protesting the surge and the tactics used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, several thousand people gathered in downtown Minneapolis in sub-freezing temperatures, including families with small kids, elderly couples and young activists.
Katia Kagan, wearing a “No ICE” sweatshirt and holding a sign demanding the agency leave the city, said she was the daughter of Russian Jews who immigrated to America seeking safety and a better life.
“I’m out here because I’m going to fight for the American dream that my parents came here for,” Kagan said.
Kim, a 65-year-old meditation coach who asked that her last name not be used, called the surge a “full-on fascist attack of our federal government on citizens.”
In a Minneapolis neighborhood near the sites where Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two US citizens, were fatally shot this month by federal immigration agents, about 50 teachers and staff members from local schools turned out to march.
Rock star Bruce Springsteen lent his voice to the protest, taking the stage at a fundraiser for Good and Pretti in downtown Minneapolis and playing his new song “Streets of Minneapolis.”
Protests stretched well beyond Minnesota as organizers forecast 250 demonstrations across 46 states and in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington under the slogan, “No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE.”
Trump in turn offered a vote of confidence for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees ICE. Critics have called for her resignation but Trump said on social media that Noem “has done a really GREAT JOB!,” asserting that “The Border disaster that I inherited is fixed.”
Local FBI chief forced out
Meanwhile, events in Minneapolis reverberated through the federal government.
The acting head of the Minneapolis FBI field office, Jarrad Smith, was removed from his post, according to two sources familiar with the move. Smith was reassigned to FBI headquarters in Washington, according to one of the sources.
The Minneapolis field office has been involved in the federal surge as well as investigations into the Pretti shooting and a church protest that led to charges against former CNN anchor Don Lemon.
The FBI arrested Lemon on Friday and the Justice Department charged him with violating federal law during a protest inside a St. Paul, Minnesota, church earlier this month in what his lawyer called an attack on press freedom.
After pleading not guilty, Lemon told reporters, “I will not be silenced. I look forward to my day in court.”
The New York Times, citing an internal ICE memo it reviewed, reported on Friday that federal agents were told this week they have broader power to arrest people without a warrant, expanding the ability of lower-level ICE agents to carry out sweeps rounding up suspected undocumented immigrants they encounter.
Backlash against the administration’s immigration policy also threatened to spark a partial US government shutdown as Democrats in Congress opposed funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
Public opinion shifts
Weeks of viral videos showing the aggressive tactics of heavily armed and masked agents on the streets of Minneapolis have driven public approval of Trump’s immigration policy to the lowest level of his second term, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
As uproar over the ICE operation grew, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, was dispatched to Minneapolis, saying his officers would return to more targeted operations, rather than the broad street sweeps that have led to clashes with protesters.
Echoing protesters’ sentiments, Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz on Friday questioned whether that would happen and said more drastic changes were needed.
“The only way to ensure the safety of the people of Minnesota is for the federal government to draw down their forces and end this campaign of brutality,” Walz said on X.
Trump said earlier this week he wanted to “de-escalate a bit,” but when asked by reporters on Thursday if he was pulling back, Trump said: “Not at all.”
In Aurora, Colorado, public schools closed on Friday due to large, anticipated teacher and student absences. The Denver suburb saw intense immigration raids last year after Trump claimed it was a “war zone” overrun by Venezuelan gangs.
In Tucson, Arizona, at least 20 schools canceled classes in anticipation of mass absences.
At DePaul University in Chicago, protest signs read “sanctuary campus” and “fascists not welcome here.”
High school students bearing anti-ICE signs staged a walkout in Long Beach, California. In Brooklyn, a long parade of high-school-age protesters marched and chanted anti-ICE obscenities.
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