{"id":7692,"date":"2024-03-23T14:03:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T14:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/23\/in-first-remarks-on-attack-putin-tries-to-link-assailants-to-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2024-03-23T14:03:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T14:03:22","slug":"in-first-remarks-on-attack-putin-tries-to-link-assailants-to-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/23\/in-first-remarks-on-attack-putin-tries-to-link-assailants-to-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"In First Remarks on Attack, Putin Tries to Link Assailants to Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia laid the groundwork on Saturday for blaming Ukraine for the Moscow concert hall attack. And in making his first remarks on the assault more than 19 hours after it began, he pledged to punish the perpetrators, \u201cwhoever they may be, whoever may have sent them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Putin, in a five-minute televised address, claimed that someone in Ukraine had tried to help the attackers escape across the border from Russia before they were apprehended by Russian security services.<\/p>\n

He did not definitively pin the attack on Ukraine; nor did he refer to the assessment by American officials that a branch of the Islamic State was behind it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were trying to hide and were moving toward Ukraine,\u201d Mr. Putin said, referring to the four men who carried out the attack and who the Kremlin said had been captured in western Russia. \u201cBased on preliminary information, a window for crossing the border was prepared for them by the Ukrainian side.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n