MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. The recent terrorist attack against Dmitry Sytyi, head of the Russian House in the Central African Republic (CAR), may have been committed in retaliation for the French military contingent leaving the country and Western involvement in this crime is quite evident, head of the missionary department of the African Patriarchal Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, priest Georgy Maximov told TASS on Tuesday.

"Neither I, nor, as far as I understand, anyone in the CAR, have any doubts that this is a kind of revenge for the French who right on that day (the day of the attack - TASS) were departing, the last French soldiers were leaving the CAR. And this is not a coincidence. And it is my belief, and this is not just my opinion - I have not heard any other opinions from those in the CAR - that this is revenge on the part of the French. <...> This whole year, they again were trying to fan the flames of a civil war there, supporting rebel groups which, with the help of our specialists, the local authorities managed to conquer and drive out of most of the country. So this, within the framework of all these activities, is just another crime, in a sequence of many crimes committed or stoked by the French side in the Central African Republic," the clergyman said who was on a church mission to the CAR this year and, among others, worked with the head of the Russian House.

On December 16, the Russian Embassy reported that Sytyi was rushed to a local hospital in serious condition after an anonymous parcel with his name on it exploded. On December 19, he was flown to Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the incident as an act of terrorism. On December 15, the site of the French Defense Ministry published a statement that the last French troops stationed in the CAR within the framework of the MISLOG logistics mission had left the African country. The communique stressed that "the mission that about 130 servicemen participated in no longer had any operational justification.".