Vladimir Putin, who has not yet attended any tribute ceremony for the victims of the attack near Moscow, nor visited the families or the injured, nevertheless feels pain, assured the Kremlin. “The head of state feels personally and fully concerned by these kinds of tragedies. Believe me, even if you don’t see tears on his face, that doesn’t mean he isn’t suffering,” said the presidential spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, in a short interview broadcast this Saturday.
A discreet president
“It is unlikely that anyone knows and understands what he is going through, including you and me,” added Dmitry Peskov. On March 22, gunmen entered Crocus City Hall, a large concert hall near Moscow, before shooting into the crowd and setting the building on fire. According to the latest report from Russian rescuers, at least 144 people were killed and 551 injured during this attack claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State, the deadliest attack in the last twenty years in Russia.
After the tragedy, the Russian president waited until the next day to speak publicly and the Kremlin indicated on Thursday that he had not immediately planned to meet the families of the victims, nor to go to the scene of the tragedy. attack. On Saturday, Western diplomats, notably American and European, as well as from African and Latin American countries, went to the site to lay flowers and observe a minute of silence, the Ria-Novosti agency reported.
On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin went to the Tver region, northwest of Moscow, to visit a historical museum and meet employees of the culture sector. On Thursday, he participated in a meeting dedicated to tourism. The Russian president only admitted on Monday that the attack had been committed by “radical Islamists”, but Russian authorities accused Ukraine and its Western allies, who strongly deny it, of having “facilitated” it.