Missiles Fired at Kyiv as Moscow Threatens Terror Reprisals Against the Wrong People

DAYLI BEAST:  Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia, said on Monday that those who carried out last week’s terror attack at a concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow “will be killed,” but claimed that it is “much more important” to ensure that anyone who so much as sympathized with the gunmen are put to death.

ISIS-K, an Afghanistan-based affiliate group of the so-called Islamic State, claimed responsibility for the horrific slaughter Friday at the Crocus City Hall which left at least 137 people dead—the deadliest act of terrorism on Russian soil for 20 years. Medvedev, the current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, and others have already claimed that Ukraine may have been involved in the massacre, an allegation angrily rebuffed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In a Telegram message, Medvedev congratulated those involved in capturing the alleged shooters (four men, all with visible physical injuries, were charged with terror offenses in a Russian court on Sunday). “Should we kill them? We should. And we will,” Medvedev wrote.

More important, he added, is that Russia ensures it kills “everyone involved” in the attack, not just the apprehended suspects. “All of them: those who paid, those who sympathized [and] those who helped,” Medvedev wrote. “Kill them all.”

The threats came as Russia stepped up its bombardment of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, which was targeted with ballistic missiles fired from occupied Crimea on Monday.

His post follows an earlier message in which he said Ukrainian officials should face lethal punishment if they had a hand in the attack. “If it is established that these are terrorists of the Kyiv regime... all of them must be found and ruthlessly destroyed as terrorists,” Medvedev wrote shortly after the attack Friday, saying that even “official representatives of the state that committed such a crime” should not escape retribution.

ISIS-K had already claimed responsibility for the attack when Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a national address Saturday. Putin made no mention of the group, instead claiming the four “direct perpetrators” of the killings had “tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them from the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”

U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement that “ISIS bears sole responsibility” for the slaughter and that there was “no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” according to the Associated Press. She added that the U.S. had shared information of a planned terrorist attack in Moscow with Russia in early March and had publicly warned Americans in the country of an imminent threat.

Zelensky himself pushed back on allegations of Ukrainian involvement in the killings. “What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious,” he said in a video statement Saturday. “Both Putin and other scoundrels simply try to blame everything on someone else.” He went on to claim that the “miserable” Russian president “remained silent for a day thinking about how to link this with Ukraine” and said Putin would “try to turn such a situation to his personal advantage again.”

On Monday, at least 10 people were injured by falling debris in Kyiv as a result of a Russian missile attack on the city, Ukrainian officials said. A 16-year-old girl was among the wounded, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who said she had since been discharged from a hospital.

Zelensky thanked emergency workers and others “involved in rescue and recovery” after the incident. “Russian terrorists launched ballistic missiles at Kyiv,” he wrote on X. He added: “We reiterate that Ukraine requires more air defense systems, which provide safety for our cities and save lives. All of us who respect and protect life must put an end to this terror.”