Zelensky aide denies Ukraine link to Moscow concert hall attack

KYIV: Kyiv said Saturday it rejected Russian claims of a Ukrainian link to an attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 100 people.

Russia’s FSB security service said Saturday it had arrested the gunmen behind the attack while they were trying to flee to Ukraine.

“The versions of Russian special services regarding Ukraine are absolutely untenable and absurd,” Mykhaylo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in Russia in almost two decades.

Gun attack at Moscow concert leaves at least 40 dead: authorities

The FSB had said the perpetrators had “tried to escape, travelling by car towards the Russian-Ukrainian border … the criminals intended to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border and had appropriate contacts on the Ukrainian side.”

It did not provide further details.

Some Russian lawmakers, as well as former president Dmitry Medvedev, have also evoked a possible Ukrainian connection, without providing evidence.

Russia said Saturday it had arrested 11 people – including four assailants – though Moscow has not responded to Islamic State’s claim of responsibility or said who it believes was behind the attack.

Kyiv’s own intelligence services had on Friday said it was a “planned and deliberate provocation by the Russian special services on Putin’s orders.”