President Putin has sought to blame the West for an attack by Islamic State near Moscow that killed at least 139 people.

The assault by heavily armed gunmen on the Crocus City Hall concert hall on Friday evening was the deadliest terrorist attack claimed by the group in Europe and the worst in Russia since 2004.

Putin said today that the killings had been carried out by “radical Islamists” but suggested that the terrorists had been aided by western countries and Ukraine.

“This atrocity may be only [another] link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014 through the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime,” Putin said in comments that were published by the Kremlin.

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