Former Russian President Responds to Moscow Terror: ‘Kill Everyone Involved. Everyone’

Dmitry Medvedev, the former premiere who is now better known for regularly threatening to drop nuclear weapons on the West for interfering in Russia’s war against Ukraine has a new target for his attention after last week’s major terror attack in Moscow.

Everyone involved in Friday’s terrorist attack against a concert hall in a Moscow suburb should be executed, says former Russian President, Prime Minister, and now Deputy Chairman of the national Security Council Dmitry Medvedev says.

A group of terrorists opened fire on music lovers and threw fire-bombs at the venue, which was partially destroyed in the course of the assault. The death toll has continued to rise since the attack on Friday, and 137 are said by authorities to have died with over 140 wounded. A total of 11 people have been arrested and four of them charged.

Medvedev articulated his view on Monday that those suspects, and everyone involved in planning the attack, should die. He congratulated the police officers who apprehended the suspects and said, per Russian state media: “Should they be killed? They should be. And it will be. But it is much more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Who paid, who sympathized, who helped. Kill them all”.

The remarks suggest Medvedev’s position on the intended fate of the gunmen hasn’t moderated much from his initial view on the situation as the terror attack unfolded on Friday night, when he said: “All of them must be tracked down and ruthlessly eliminated as terrorists. Including officials of the state that committed such an atrocity… death for death”.

Medvedev was a major player in Russian politics earlier this century, swapping the Presidential and Prime Ministerial jobs with Vladimir Putin to help Putin circumvent the Russian constitution’s Presidential term limits. Now the politician frequently finds himself in Western headlines again, since Russia invaded Ukraine, given his frequent and lurid threats against the West for helping Kyiv resist the assault.

He has recently threatened to drop nuclear weapons on NATO for helping Ukraine, on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and on the “disgustingly damp” United Kingdom.

While Medvedev’s comments on the fates of the terror attack suspects prescribes death, Russia doesn’t have a death penalty in its criminal code so can’t officially execute its prisoners.

Spokesman for President Putin Dmitry Peskov appeared to move to shut down discussion on bringing back the death penalty, saying that was not up for discussion. He also refused to comment on whether the prisoners had been tortured in captivity, a question arising after images of the four suspected in court showed them with swollen faces and bandages. As noted, in some cases footage of alleged torture has been published.