BISHKEK, May 24. /TASS/. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate [GUR] played a direct role in the Crocus City Hall attack, Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov said at a CIS security meeting in Bishkek.

"The investigation is ongoing, but I can already say with confidence that Ukraine’s military intelligence was directly involved in that attack," he told the heads of CIS security and intelligence agencies.

Bortnikov assured the audience that all circumstances of that crime would be solved and all the participants in it would be punished.

The terror attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the city of Krasnogorsk just a stone’s throw from Moscow’s city limits was staged on the evening of March 22. According to the latest data, the terror attack claimed 144 lives. As many as 551 people were hurt. All four perpetrators of the attack have been taken into custody, along with another eight people who investigators believe were accomplices to the crime.