Moscow calls the crash Sinai attack – Le Figaro

VIDEO – Vladimir Putin promises to “find and punish” those responsible for the crash, “where they are hiding” in the world, three weeks after the explosion the Airbus A 321, which killed 224 people in Egypt.

From our correspondent in Moscow

The crash of the Airbus 321 over the Sinai is a terrorist act. Nearly three weeks after the plane crash, and three days after the attacks in Paris, Moscow officially recognized a truth that Western countries had in turn released early. This is the boss of the FSB, Russia’s domestic security service, Alexander Bortnikov, who announced Putin in a setting television scene. The Russian president has immediately drawn conclusions: it will “find” and “punish” the perpetrators of the attack, “anywhere in the world.” For this, “we must rely on our friends,” said the head of the Kremlin, addressing indirectly to its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

Meanwhile, the Russian air forces will intensify their bombing in Syria. Moscow has already begun on Tuesday morning against Raqqa. “The Russians are strongly hit the town of Raqqa, it is proof that their side too there is an awareness,” said a French government source, without giving more details.

The day before, Putin had established a link between the attacks in Paris and Paris considered intransigent position towards Bashar Assad and the “refusal” of Western countries to join the international coalition the fight against terrorism that he had called for the rostrum of the UN.

The explosive found on the plane that exploded in Sinai harbored about 1 kg TNT equivalent , said Alexander Bortnikov, who pledged $ 50 million to anyone who can provide ‘information’ about the perpetrators of the air attack. For his part, the Minister of Interior Vladimir Kolokoltsev announced new measures to ensure the security of Russians, especially in public events.

The punitive operation announced by Vladimir Putin will build on the UN Charter which authorizes Member States to invoke the right to self-defense, said the latter. For its part, the two chambers of the Russian parliament, the Duma and the Federation Council, must now launch a call to create a “grand coalition against terrorism on the model of the anti-Hitler coalition” in force at the Second World War. In their joint statement, the Russian parliamentarians attributed the attacks in Paris to “myopic and selfish policy of Washington” in the Near and Middle East. Francois Hollande will meet with Vladimir Putin next week in Moscow and Barack Obama in Washington.