Last week, the Russian leader was shown lighting a candle in memory of the victims at a Moscow church, but he did not visit the site of the massacre or meet the victims publicly.
“If any contacts are needed, we will inform you accordingly,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked if Putin planned to meet with the families of those killed.
He also said that V. Putin does not intend to visit the scene of the massacre near the Crocus City Hall concert hall, in the ruins of which rescuers have been searching for the bodies of the dead for the past week. “These days, it would be completely inappropriate to conduct any fact-finding trips, because it would simply interfere with the work,” D. Peskov said.
Islamic State jihadists have repeatedly claimed responsibility for the attack since Friday, but Putin and Russian officials have suggested Ukraine and Western intelligence are to blame. The Kremlin expressed confidence in the country’s powerful security institutions, ignoring the question of why they did not prevent the massacre, even though the US embassy and several other Western countries had warned of a high risk of terrorist attacks in Russia a couple of weeks before.
