Russia said on Saturday it had arrested all four gunmen suspected of carrying out a shooting massacre in a concert hall near Moscow, and President Vladimir Putin pledged to track down and punish those behind the attack.ISIS claimed responsibility for Friday's rampage, but there were indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link, despite emphatic denials from Ukrainian officials that Kyiv had anything to do with it.Moscow regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said 133 bodies had been recovered from the rubble in 24 hours and doctors were &fighting for the lives of 107 people&.
State TV editor Margarita Simonyan, without citing a source, had earlier given a toll of 143.In a televised address, Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen.
&They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,& he said.Russia's FSB security service said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border.
It said they were being transferred to Moscow, Reuters reported.Neither Putin nor the FSB publicly presented any proof of a link with Ukraine, with which Russia has been waging war since Moscow invaded 25 months ago.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was typical of Putin and &other thugs& to seek to divert blame.The White House said the United States government shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow, and issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7.
It said Islamic State bore sole responsibility for the attack.There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,& United States National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said on Saturday.But Russia's ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said early on Sunday the United States had not shared any specific information with the embassy before the shooting.Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said the attackers fled in a Renault vehicle that was spotted by police in Bryansk region, about 340 km southwest of Moscow on Friday night.
He said a car chase ensued after they disobeyed orders to stop.Khinshtein said a pistol, a magazine for an assault rifle, and passports from Tajikistan were found in the car.BBC News& Russian Service quoted an unnamed source familiar with the security response as saying one attacker was killed in the concert hall, and another in the car in Bryansk.The BBC said it had a copy of that dead man's passport, who it said was a 30-year-old citizen of Tajikistan.Islamic State, which once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group's Amaq agency said on Telegram.Islamic State said its fighters attacked on the outskirts of Moscow, &killing and wounding hundreds and causing great destruction to the place before they withdrew to their bases safely&.
The statement gave no further detail.The post Putin vows to punish those behind Russia concert massacre first appeared on Ariana News.