The massacre near Moscow.
A short time ago, Russian state
media reported
that the suspected attackers
are all foreign citizens.
Icis claims
respond stability for the rampage
on a concert venue yesterday.
The death toll rising once again today
to at least 133 people.
And in his first video message
since the attack, President
Vladimir Putin called it a barbaric
terrorist act.
CNN senior international correspondent
Fred Pleitgen is monitoring
developments from Berlin.
Fred, good morning to you.
Have authorities given any more details
about the suspects in this attack?
Well, they have.
The Russian authorities certainly have.
And it seems to diverge a little bit
from what we've been hearing from the US
and also from ISIS itself.
Of course, ICE has claimed responsibility
for the attack that happened
late last night.
They offered
an additional social media post
earlier today
and then you had the US that came out
and said
that they have absolutely no reason
to doubt ISIS's claim of responsibility.
Of course, the US coming out very early
now the Russians have
a bit of a different take on all of that.
They say that they,
at this point in time
apprehended 11 individuals in total.
That includes the four shooters
who they say went into that concert
venue yesterday
evening outside of Moscow
in the town of Krasnodar,
and started shooting up
almost everybody
that came across their path,
the Russians saying
some of those people shot at point blank.
We're seeing some of the aftermath
on our screen right now.
The Russians are saying,
as you pointed out,
that none of those individuals
are Russian citizens.
They do say
and this comes
from Vladimir Putin, who went on
Russian state TV earlier today,
that apparently these individuals
tried to make a getaway to Ukraine.
Let's listen in.
Security were
all for direct
perpetrators of the terrorist attack
or those who shot and killed.
People were found and detained.
They tried to hide and move towards
Ukraine, where,
according to preliminary data,
a window was prepared for them.
When the Ukrainian side
to cross the state border,
a total of 11 people were detained.
So an interesting thing that
Vladimir Putin is saying
allegedly a window was open for them
on the other side,
as he put it, obviously
seeming to mean
some sort of opening in the border,
which would be remarkable
because, of course, that border
currently is the front line
between Ukraine
and the Russians is a lot of fighting
that's going on in that area.
So the Russians apparently
trying to somehow
were apparently implicating
or at least linking all of this
to Ukraine.
The Ukrainians at this point in time
having none of it, saying
they have absolutely nothing
to do with all this Fred.
All right, Fred Pleitgen,
thank you so much.
And I should say good evening to you
at 5:00 there. Thanks so much.
All right.
Let's bring in CNN national security
analyst Eve
Hall and CNN
chief law enforcement
and intelligence analyst John Miller.
Great to see you both, gentlemen.
So, Steve, you first.
ISIS is quick to claim
responsibility for this attack.
But we heard
Putin suggest that the suspects
were trying to flee into Ukraine.
He obviously wants
to make some sort of correlation
with Ukraine, perhaps,
you know, added justification
for Russia's invasion of that country.
Yeah, Fred, it's worth remembering that
whatever comes out of
the Kremlin is serves
no other purpose than to support
Vladimir Putin
and the Kremlin's policies.
So whether it's numbers of casualties,
whether it's
who committed this terrorist act,
whether it's
whether they were going
to Ukraine or not,
which frankly makes zero
sense whatsoever from
from pretty much any perspective,
unless you're trying to protect
Vladimir Putin from embarrassment
for not listening to intelligence
that was provided by the United States
and probably others.
There's really nothing to believe there.
So, yeah,
it doesn't
it seems to make sense to me
that it would be a terrorist element.
The United States government
doesn't see any inconsistencies with it
being icis.
So, you know,
my inclination
is to believe any other source
before you believe the Kremlin.
And, John, in fact, the U.S.
and other Western governments had warned
Russia earlier
this month about the possibility
of an ice attack.
Putin labeled the warning
outright blackmail
during a speech earlier this week.
So help folks understand,
even though
Russia is an adversary of the U.S.,
America adheres by this so-called duty
to warn.
So the duty to warn doctrine
applies, particularly in terrorism,
where there is information
that one intelligence service
may come into.
That means people
may be killed in another place.
And even if that place is not a U.S.
ally,
even if it's a hostile foreign power,
the duty
to warn is to protect innocent people
no matter what the politics.
And so
US intelligence
passed the information
they had about terrorist chatter
about an upcoming attack in Russia.
And then on March 7th,
four Americans in the region
actually posted that
on the embassy website.
And yes, Fred, as you said,
Vladimir Putin came out and said
this was an attempt to destabilize,
you know, Russians feelings of safety.
Yesterday was the fog of war.
Today, what we have
is the fog of propaganda.
So let's break it down
for Vladimir Putin.
It's going to be very important
to try and leverage this
not into a massive intelligence failure,
massive security failure,
confused response,
but rather to make this Russia's
October 7th innocent people slaughtered.
And who better to push that blame to
even tacitly than to the Ukraine?
So we're seeing that unfold now
in a mix of propaganda,
but also information
coming from official channels
and Putin himself from the U.S.
standpoint.
ISIS claimed responsibility for this
through its official channels,
put out more material today
and has a history of animosity
towards Russia
going back to the Russian
bombing of its camps
and fighters in Syria
on behalf of Bashir Assad.
Its actions in the caucuses
against the Chechnyans
and other Muslims in the region.
So it fits.
But we're going to see a tug of war
in the propaganda space right now.
Interesting.
And Steve, it's been barely a week
since Putin
was elected to his fifth term
as president.
He has long branded himself
as a strongman leader,
able to keep peace and order.
So how does this attack
affect that perception
given to his people
and his defiance against believing
that issued threat?
Yeah, Fred, I think this is
what Vladimir Putin is
most concerned about in this attack.
He's certainly
not really concerned about,
you know,
the loss of the loss of Russian life.
You know, if that were the case,
he wouldn't be sending tens
and thousands, hundreds
of thousands of young Russian men
to die for no good reason
on Ukrainian frontline.
So that's not his main concern.
His main concern is
that he's got to deal
with the Russian people.
And the deal goes something like this.
Russian society
is prepared to say, look,
we don't need all of the
all of these freedoms
that they have in the West.
You know, these things
that you guys call elections,
they're not really elections in Russia,
but that's fine.
We're not going to speak out
too strongly against that.
And in return
for a limiting of those civil liberties
that we're used to in the West.
Putin is supposed to provide security.
So when he fails to do that,
as he clearly did
in this case,
and it's made worse
by the fact
that he knew about it beforehand
from intelligence
that could cause
the Russian people to say,
hold on a second,
how come we're being repressed
when we try to protest?
How come people like Navalny are dying
and all these resources
are going to control
these so-called opposition forces?
And we can't even go to a concert
without getting slaughtered.
That gets into that.
It starts to erode that agreement
between Putin and Russian society.
And that's what I think he's
got to be very worried about right now.
All very powerful.
All right.
Steve Hall,
John Miller, good to see both.
Thanks so much.