Putin says gunmen who raided Moscow concert hall tried to escape to Ukraine

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities arrested the four men suspected of carrying out the attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133 people, said Saturday during an address to the nation. He claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.

Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday’s attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk and the Islamic State’s Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility.

Putin didn’t mention IS in his speech, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault in order to stoke fervor in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which recently 

U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the claim by IS’s Afghanistan affiliate that it was responsible for the attack, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. U.S. intelligence agencies gathered information in recent weeks that the IS branch was planning an attack in Moscow, and U.S. officials privately shared the intelligence with Russian officials earlier this month, the U.S. official said. The official was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence information and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Putin said authorities have detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also injured more than 100 concertgoers and left the venue on Moscow’s western rim a smoldering ruin. He called it “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspected gunmen as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.