Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said that the gunmen who carried out the terror attack initially tried to free to Belarus, not Ukraine as claimed by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Putin had accused Ukraine of preparing a “window” for the attackers to cross the border – currently a war zone. The Ukrainian government has denied the accusations.
Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, said that Belarusian and Russian security services had coordinated their actions to nab the culprits.
“That’s why they couldn’t enter Belarus. They saw that, so they turned away and went to the area of the Ukrainian-Russian border. Putin and I didn’t sleep for a day. There was constant interaction,” he was quoted as saying by the state news agency BelTA.
Meanwhile, Russian officials have reiterated their stance that Ukraine and the West had a role in last week’s deadly Moscow concert hall attack despite vehement denials of involvement by Kyiv and a claim of responsibility by an affiliate of the Islamic State group.
Without offering any evidence, Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, followed similar allegations by President Vladimir Putin, who linked the attack to Ukraine even as he acknowledged that the suspects who were arrested were “radical Islamists.”
Bortnikov alleged that Western spy agencies also could have been involved in the deadliest terror attack on Russian soil in two decades, even as he acknowledged receiving a US tip about the attack.
“We believe that radical Islamists prepared the action, while Western special services have assisted it and Ukrainian special services had a direct part in it,” Bortnikov said without giving details.
The IS affiliate claimed it carried out the attack, and U.S. intelligence said it had information confirming the group was responsible. Gunmen killed 139 people in the Crocus City Hall, a concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow. Health officials said about 90 people remain hospitalised, with 22 of them, including two children, in grave condition.
With inputs from AP
