MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. The United States will not be able to lead the investigation into the Crocus City Hall attack astray with talk about the involvement of the Islamic State terror group, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"We can see that the US is using various channels, trying to convince the international community that supporters of Wilayat Khorasan (outlawed in Russia), the Afghan branch of ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the earlier name of the Islamic State - TASS), are behind the Krasnogorsk terrorist attack. The thing to keep in mind is that the US is not involved in investigating this deadly crime and is in no way capable of influencing the course of the investigation, let alone of leading it astray," Zakharova said in an interview with the aif.ru media outlet.
She added that Washington was seeking "to whitewash" its underlings in Ukraine. "They (the Americans - TASS) are literally covering up for the Kiev regime, primarily in order to divert suspicion from themselves," the Russian diplomat stressed.
On the evening of March 22, a terrorist attack targeted the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk, just outside the Moscow city limits. According to the latest data, 144 people were killed and 551 suffered injuries. Eleven people, including four direct perpetrators, have been arrested in the case of the terrorist attack. The Russian Investigative Committee said that investigators had found evidence of the attackers’ connection to Ukrainian nationalists.