Kremlin declines to comment on allegations of Tsar's family murder being 'ritual'

MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/. Kremlin does not comment on the probe investigating whether the murder of last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family members was ritual, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

On November 27, Russian Colonel of Justice Marina Molodtsova addressed a conference dedicated to the investigation into the royal family’s murder, saying that after the investigation had been resumed, more than 30 forensic tests had been commissioned. According to her, a psychological and historical test will be conducted to find out if it could have been a ritual killing.

Meanwhile, Bishop of Yegoryevsk Tikhon (Shevkunov), who heads the Russian Patriarch’s commission analyzing the results of tests of the royal family members’ remains, said that most commission members had no doubt that it actually had been a ritual murder.

Nicholas II and his family members were shot in the city of Yekaterinburg in 1918. White Army investigator Nikolay Sokolov, who conducted a probe in 1919-1922, concluded that all the bodies had been incinerated.

In the early 1990s, a group of researchers found some remains suspected of belonging to the royal family members. In 1998, the remains were buried in the Romanov tomb at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. The Russian Orthodox Church posed a number of questions to investigators and the state commission probing into the case, which have remained unanswered.

Therefore, the Church has adhered to the opinion that the probe had been insufficient and the remains found in Yekaterinburg could not have been those of the Romanov family members. In September 2015, the Russian Investigative Committee resumed the investigation into the Romanov family murder.