Ukraine-Russia war: New fears for Ukraine after 133 killed in Moscow terror attack, including children
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has lashed out at Russia’s Vladimir Putin over the horrific Moscow concert hall massacre.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has 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,” Mr Zelenskyy announced, after Mr Putin said the suspects had been fleeing towards Ukraine.
“They always have the same methods,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
In a televised address earlier, Mr Putin said the four gunmen arrested for the deadly attack were “travelling towards 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.
The White House has condemned the Moscow attack, says the Islamic State group, which chas claimed resposbility for the attack, is the “common terrorist enemy”.
“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,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
“Everything is absolutely predictable.”
It was the deadliest attack in Russia for almost two decades and the deadliest in Europe to have been claimed by IS.
Mr Putin made no reference to the group’s claims of responsibility in his address.
Experts say Ukraine could bear the brunt of Russia’s wrath after the terror attack on the packed Crocus City Hall,
The crow was sprayed the crowd with gunfire, causing a stampede as terrified concertgoers tried to flee.
The attackers later set the venue alight, trapping civilians inside as the roof collapsed.
The Russian Investigative Committee said its preliminary findings are that the terrorists used automatic weapons in the attack and an accelerant to start the fire.
Russian television aired footage of the detention and questioning of four men suspected of carrying out the deadly attack.
Russia’s Channel One television showed footage of four suspects and their damaged white Renault car, AFP reports.
It said they had been captured by special forces in the village of Khatsun in the western Bryansk region, which is close to borders with Ukraine and Belarus.
In footage shot at night and in daylight, the detained men speak Russian with an accent.
RUSSIA BLAMES UKRAINE FOR ATTACK
A number of Russian politicians have pointed the finger at Ukraine.
Former army officer Andrey Kartapolov said “there must be a clear answer on the battlefield” if Kyiv is linked to the attack, however, Ukraine has denied having any involvement.
Dr Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the question is whether Russia will use the attack to justify an expansion of its brutal war.
“I think my focus is on how Putin will use this to justify a mobilisation of manpower that can then be thrown into the fight in Ukraine,” Dr Davis told Sky News Australia.
“That’s the key issue here – the key issue is how do we ensure that Russia is defeated in Ukraine... If Western military aid is beginning to falter, as is clearly the case with the US Congress now putting off any vote on military aid going to Ukraine, then I think that the real risk as we go into the northern spring and summer, the Russians will break through the Ukrainian defences and then launch an offensive.
“It’s a case of how does Putin use this latest incident to justify an expansion and intensification of the war in Ukraine.”
The incident comes just days after Mr Putin secured another six-year term as the country’s leader in an electoral landslide.
It’s the deadliest attack on Russian soil since Islamist militants took more than 1000 people hostage in the Beslan school siege of 2004.
RUSSIA LAUNCHES DEADLY NEW STRIKES
Russia launched a massive wave of deadly overnight attacks on Ukraine using over 90 missiles and 60 Iranian-made drones, Mr Zelenskyy said on Friday, in one of the largest offensives recently.
“There were more than 60 ‘Shaheds’ and almost 90 missiles of various types overnight,” he said.
“The world sees the targets of Russian terrorists as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, ahydro-electricc dam, ordinary residential buildings, even a trolleybus.” Ukraine’s internal affairs ministry said the strikes killed at least two people and injured 14, while three were missing.
“All of our services are now involved in eliminating the consequences of the attack. We use robotic equipment in dangerous areas to minimise injuries to rescuers,” he said.
Zelenskyy once again appealed for more Western arms.
“Russian missiles do not have delays, as do aid packages to our country. The ‘Shahed’ have no indecision, like some politicians. It is important to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions,” he said.
“We need air defence to protect people, infrastructure, homes and dams. Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us... Life must be protected from these non-humans from Moscow”.
One of the strikes Friday severed one of two power lines supplying Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southeast Ukraine.
“The enemy is now carrying out the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy industry in recent times,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook, adding that shelling had knocked out “one of the power transmission lines feeding” the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
The facility, Europe’s largest nuclear energy site, was seized by Russian troops in the first days of the war but is powered by Ukrainian lines.
“This situation is extremely dangerous and risks sparking an emergency situation”, said Ukraine’s atomic energy operator Energoatom.
In the event that the final power line is cut, it said the plant will be “on the verge of another blackout, which is a serious violation of the conditions of safe operation of the plant”.
Since the beginning of the war, the Zaporizhzhia power plant has suffered multiple blackouts, falling back on emergency diesel generators and safety systems.
“In case of their failure, a threat of a nuclear and radiation accident will emerge,” said Energoatom.
According to Zaporizhzhia’s governor, 12 Russian missiles hit the region early Friday, destroying several houses and injuring an unknown number of people.
“According to initial reports, seven houses were destroyed, 35 were damaged,” Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram, adding that people had been injured.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian mayor of the city of Mariupol, under Russian control since 2022, said on Telegram that a Russian missile had hit a trolleybus at the Dniprohydro-electricc station, also in Zaporizhzhia, killing civilians travelling on it.
Oleksandr Symchyshyn, mayor of the western city of Khmelnytskyi, described “a horrible morning” with damage to infrastructure and residential buildings.
“There are victims and casualties among civilians,” he wrote on Telegram. The interior ministry said two were killed and eight injured in the region. Energy facilities were targeted by Russian missile, drone, and artillery strikes in multiple cities across Ukraine on Friday, including Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, ,and Kryvyi Rig.
“The goal is not just to damage, but to try again, like last year, to cause a large-scale failure of the country’s energy system,” said energy minister Galushchenko.
ZELENSKY TELLS EU MORE AMMO ‘CRUCIAL’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders at a summit on Thursday local time it was “crucial” to send more ammunition to his outgunned frontline troops.
“Unfortunately, the use of artillery at the frontline by our soldiers is humiliating for Europe in the sense that Europe can provide more — and it is crucial to prove it now,” Zelensky told an EU summit by videolink.
It comes as EU leaders grappled with how to get more weapons to Ukraine’s outgunned forces while also rearming their own countries in the face of Russia’s emboldened President Vladimir Putin.
More than two years into Moscow’s war against its neighbour, Kyiv’s troops are struggling to hold back the Russian army as Western deliveries of ammunition have faltered.
Putin has tightened his iron grip over his country by winning a new six-year term at elections after opposition was crushed.
Addressing the EU’s 27 leaders via videolink, Mr Zelensky told them the shortfall in ammunition facing his troops was “humiliating” for Europe.
“Europe can provide more — and it is crucial to prove it now,” he said, also calling for additional air-defence systems in the wake of a large-scale strike on Kyiv.
As a $60-billion package remains stalled in Washington, the EU leaders debated a plan to use profits from 200 billion euros in frozen Russian central bank assets on weapons for Ukraine.
The proposal could unlock some three billion euros ($3.3 billion) a year for Kyiv, but leaders were not expected to give the final go-ahead on Thursday.
That would come on top of more than 33 billion euros that the EU says it has provided towards arming Ukraine since the Kremlin invaded in February 2022.
US ‘WILL NOT LET UKRAINE FAIL’
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has promised that the United States will not let Ukraine fail in fighting off Russia, even as further aid remains stalled in Congress and Kyiv’s forces face shortages of munitions.
The Republican-led House of Representatives has been blocking US$60 billion in assistance for Ukraine and the United States has warned that a recent US$300 million package would only last a few weeks.
The “United States will not let Ukraine fail”, Austin said at the opening of a meeting in Germany of Ukraine’s international supporters, at which he is seeking to secure further assistance for Kyiv.
“We remain determined to provide Ukraine with the resources that it needs to resist the Kremlin’s aggression,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it is “critically important for us that the Congress soon completes all the necessary procedures and makes a final decision” on aid for Kyiv.
Top US military officer General Charles Brown told journalists en route to the Ukraine meeting that “even as the Russians have gained territory, they do it at a pretty big cost in number of casualties, like in personnel, but also in number of pieces of equipment that are being taken out.”
Austin said in his remarks that “Russia has paid a staggering cost for (President Vladimir) Putin’s imperial dreams”, using “up to $211 billion to equip, deploy, maintain, and sustain its imperial aggression against Ukraine.”
“At least 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded” since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Austin said, adding that Ukraine has also “sunk, destroyed, or damaged some 20 medium-to-large Russian navy vessels.”
The sinkings have been an embarrassment for Moscow and Russian state media confirmed Tuesday that the country had replaced the head of its navy.
PUTIN: PUNISH ‘SCUM’ PRO-UKRAINE FIGHTERS
President Vladimir Putin has called on the FSB security service to identify and punish pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters who have taken part in an increasing number of deadly attacks on border regions.
“About these traitors … we must not forget who they are, we must identify them by name. We will punish them without statute of limitations, wherever they are,” Putin said, calling Russians fighting against their country “scum”.
It comes as Russia said Tuesday that its troops had made gains in eastern Ukraine, building on recent advances against Ukrainian forces in critical need of Western aid.
Facing a difficult situation on the front lines, Kyiv has responded with an increasing number of incursions and attacks on Russian territory bordering Ukraine.
Some of the incursions have been carried out by the Russians volunteering to fight in pro-Ukrainian units, which Putin seeks to “punish”.
“On the Avdiivka front, units of the ‘Centre’ grouping of troops liberated the village of Orlivka,” the Russian defence ministry said.
It is the latest in a string of gains for Moscow, which has built on the capture of Avdiivka a month ago.
Avdiivka’s seizure had forced Ukrainian troops to withdraw to defensive lines along Tonenke, Berdychi and Orlivka.
The Ukrainian army has not addressed the potential seizure of Orlivka. But Kyiv has acknowledged a difficult situation on the battlefield and urged the West to keep up and deliver on its promises of support.
Kyiv has intensified its attacks on Russian territory, with shelling and incursions in the regions of Belgorod and Kursk.
In the past week these attacks killed 16 people and wounded nearly a hundred in the region of Belgorod, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
Speaking at a meeting of ruling party members, he also announced the evacuation of thousands of children from areas at risk.
Putin addressed the border assaults, which have marred his re-election week, in a meeting with his FSB security services.
He claimed Russian troops inflicted “heavy losses” on units that he said where made up of regular Ukrainian soldiers, foreign mercenaries and pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters.
Ukraine-based militias, made up of Russian citizens who oppose Moscow’s offensive and have taken up arms for Kyiv, have claimed to be behind previous incursions into Russian territory.
One of them is the Russian Volunteer Corps. Its head of staff, identified as Aleksandr, gave an interview on Ukrainian television, denying heavy losses.
“There are losses, but absolutely not of the scale claimed by Putin or the defence ministry,” he said.
KREMLIN HAILS PUTIN WIN
The Kremlin has hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s election win as “exceptional”, after the ex-KGB spy won around 88 per cent of the vote in a three-day ballot blasted as illegitimate by Western powers.
The Kremlin said Putin held phone calls with his ex-Soviet allies in Central Asia, Belarus and Azerbaijan after the vote.
He also received congratulations from other authoritarian countries such as China, North Korea, Venezuela and Myanmar, Russian state media said.
Moscow has presented the election results as proof that Russians rallied around Putin more than two years into his war on Ukraine.
Putin’s victory is widely expected to further tighten his grip on Russia, where dissent is no longer tolerated under fast-accelerating repression.
In power since the last day of 1999, he is now on course to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the result showed Russians were consolidating “around his (Putin’s) path.”
All of the 71-year-old’s major opponents are dead, in prison or in exile and voting took place a month after Putin’s main challenger Alexei Navalny died in prison.
Kremlin-friendly electoral chief Ella Pamfilova said Putin had won a “record” result and got “almost 76 million” votes.
Golos, an independent Russian election observer, said: “We have never seen a presidential campaign that fell so far short of constitutional standards.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the world faced the highest risk of nuclear war in decades.
At a Security Council session called by Japan, Guterres said that the Oscar-winning movie about the morally conflicted father of the atomic bomb “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”
“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” Guterres said. “We meet at a time when geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons as he warns the West against its support for Ukraine, which Moscow invaded more than two years ago.
Without naming Putin, Guterres said, “Nuclear sabre-rattling must stop.”
“Threats to use nuclear weapons in any capacity are unacceptable,” he said.
WORLD REACTS TO PUTIN VICTORY
Whereas the previous four presidential elections Putin won since 2000 saw Western leaders pour in their congratulations, his victory this time was met with scathing statements.
“This election has been based on repression and intimidation,” the EU’s foreign minister Josep Borrell said.
The UK also slammed the vote as unfair.
“Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy,” Britain’s foreign minister David Cameron said in a statement.
Kyiv slammed the vote as a sham and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced Mr Putin as a “dictator” who was “drunk from power”.
“There is no evil he will not commit to prolong his personal power,” Mr Zelenskyy said in a message on social media.
A White House spokesman said: “The elections are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.”
Ukrainian ally Poland said the vote was not “legal, free and fair,” in a statement issued by the foreign ministry.
EU chief Charles Michel had sarcastically congratulated Mr Putin on his “landslide victory” on the first day of polls opening on Friday.
Electoral chief Ella Pamfilova, speaking on state television, dismissed the statements as made by “a dying branch of humanity.”
NAVALNY’S SPIRIT LIVES ON
Allies of the late Alexei Navalny – Mr Putin’s most prominent rival, who died in an Arctic prison last month – had urged voters to flood polling stations at noon and spoil their ballots for a “Noon Against Putin” protest.
His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was greeted by supporters with flowers and applause in Berlin.
She said she had written her late husband’s name on her ballot after voting at the Russian embassy.
Some voters in Moscow appeared to heed Navalny’s call, telling AFP they had come to honour his memory and show their opposition in the only legal way possible.
“I came to show that there are many of us, that we exist, that we are not some insignificant minority,” said 19-year-old student Artem Minasyan at a polling station in central Moscow.
Leonid Volkov, a senior aide to the late opposition leader who was recently attacked in Lithuania where he fled political persecution in Russia, dismissed the results published by Moscow.
“The percentages drawn for Putin have, of course, not the slightest relation to reality,” Volkov, Navalny’s former chief of staff wrote on social media.
At Navalny’s grave in a Moscow cemetery, AFP reporters saw spoiled ballot papers with his name scrawled across them on a pile of flowers.
Navalny had galvanised mass protests and tried to run against Putin in the 2018 election – touring Russia to drum up support – but his candidacy was rejected.
“We live in a country where we will go to jail if we speak our mind. So when I come to moments like this and see a lot of people, I realise that we are not alone,” said 33-year-old Regina.
‘SCUMBAG’ PROTESTERS THREATENED WITH JAIL
Russia threatened to put “traitorous, scumbag” protesters of Mr Putin’s election in jail.
Opposition leader Dmitry Gudkov said that the protests’ main goal was to demonstrate resistance to Mr Putin’s re-election.
“We want queues of people to appear at different polling stations so that everyone can see lines of people who came against Putin and against the war,” he said, according to The Sun.
“The main task is to strike at the legitimacy of this Putin government.”
Several Russians were detained after pouring dye into ballot boxes and throwing petrol bombs at booths.
Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Medvedev demanded that draconian treason laws be used against the protesters.
He said: “They are traitors, and their actions can be classified much more strictly,” adding that their “high treason” amounted to offering “assistance to a foreign state during a war”.
He continued: “This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today.
“Criminal activists at polling stations must realise that their actions could result in twenty years [of jail].”
The official face of the Kremlin’s election machine, Ella Pamfilova, called the protesters “scumbags” who “destroy the votes of people”.
She claimed to have “prevented all kinds of liquid injections at 20 polling stations and eight arson attempts”, adding: “In one case, they tried to use a smoke bomb.”
RUSSIA THREAT TO WEST
Russia could launch a large-scale attack on the West as soon as 2026, classified German intelligence documents have revealed, The Sun reports.
German secret service agents are said to have recently observed a “significant intensification of Russian arms”.
The classified report, seen by Business Insider, reportedly suggests Russia is preparing for a large-scale conflict with the West.
The reorganisation of Russia’s army, troop movements, and missile deployments in the west of the country are among the signs said to be identified in the document.
The outlet said: “ … analysis by German intelligence services is currently circulating in the German government.
“According to this, a significant intensification of Russian arms production is being observed, which could lead to Russia doubling its military power in the next five years compared to today, especially in conventional weapons.”
– with AFP
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