Former Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, has condemned the Friday’s terrorists attack at a Moscow concert venue that claimed dozens of lives.
Medvedev who is currently deputy chair of the National Security Council of Russia insisted that the perpetrators and organisers of the attack must be hunted down without mercy no matter where they are.
At least 60 people including three children were killed and over 150 wounded when gunmen with assault rifles opened fire inside the Crocus City Hall and then proceeded to set the concert venue on fire.
The venue was booked for a rock concert when the atrocity took place, with heavily armed gunmen breaking into the building and indiscriminately shooting visitors. They then reportedly set fire to the building.
According to hospital data posted on the Moscow Region’s Health Ministry website, five children were among those hospitalised after the massacre, officials have said.
The death toll stands at more than 60, although that number may rise, the Russian Investigative Committee told the media early on Saturday.
Russian Health Minister, Mikhail Murashko, has said that of the roughly 115 people that have been hospitalised, at least five are children. Their ages range from seven to 12, and two 12-year-olds are currently in serious condition. An 11-year-old girl is in moderately serious condition with a gunshot wound, while her mother was among those killed, local authorities reported. Her father and older sister survived unscathed.
Reacting in statement posted on his Telegram channel on Friday night, the former president sent condolences to the families of those killed and encouragement to the relatives of the wounded.
“Terrorists understand only terror in response. No trials or investigations will help if force is not countered with force, and deaths with executions of terrorists and a crackdown on their families,” he wrote, noting this was “the way of the world.”
“If these terrorists turn out to be the Kiev regime, we can’t deal with them and their ideological inspirers differently. All of them must be found and mercilessly destroyed as terrorists – including officials of the state that committed such an atrocity,” he added.
Medvedev’s words echoed the line by Russian President Vladimir Putin, voiced in 1999, when he was a newly appointed prime minister about to launch a counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.
“We are going to pursue terrorists everywhere,” Putin had said at the time. “If we find them in the toilet, then we will waste them in the outhouse.”
Reminiscing about it in 2011, Putin said the phrasing he used may have been “unpleasant,” but the sentiment behind it was honest and correct.