Senior Russian officials on March 25 continued to call for the strictest punishment, including the death penalty, for all those found to be involved in the terrorist attack on a Moscow region concert hall that left 139 people dead.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told a meeting of Communist Party lawmakers that those found responsible will “bear punishment.”
“They do not deserve pity,” he added
SEE ALSO: Kremlin Silent About Evidence That Moscow Attack Suspects Were AbusedDmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president who is now deputy head of the country’s Security Council, wrote on Telegram that people had been asking him if the gunmen who carried out the attack should be killed.
“They should,” he wrote. “And they will. It is more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone. Those who paid. Those who sympathized. Those who helped. Kill them all.”
The previous day, Medvedev repeated Moscow’s ungrounded accusations that Ukraine was involved in the concert hall attack, writing that the country’s leadership should be “found and pitilessly destroyed like terrorists.”
On March 23, the head of the State Duma faction of the ruling United Russia party, Vladimir Vasilyev, said on state television that people had begun discussing reinstating capital punishment in response to the attacks.
He said the topic would be discussed “profoundly and professionally” before “a decision is made that will respond to the mood and expectations of our society.”
The death penalty remains in the Russian Constitution but has been under an indefinite moratorium for nearly three decades.
Russia adopted the moratorium in 1996 as part of its post-Soviet efforts to join the Council of Europe. Russia was expelled from the council in March 2022 as a result of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 25 that the Kremlin was not involved in the calls to restore the death penalty following the Crocus City Hall attack.
“We are not taking part in the discussion at the moment,” Peskov said.