The Kommersant newspaper also quoted FSB sources as saying that they were looking for fighters linked to the pro-Ukraine Russian Volunteer Corps who they accused of dressing up – possibly with fake beards – to mount the attack.
The Russian Volunteer Corps has attacked southern Russia from Ukraine regularly over the past year.
Photos and footage that appeared online on Saturday about the alleged attackers did not carry any direct evidence that Ukraine was involved, however.
Telegram channels linked to the Russian security services released videos of four suspects captured by police after a car chase reportedly ended in a shootout at a checkpoint south-west of Moscow in Bryansk. The city is close to Ukraine’s north-eastern border and Belarus.
In one of the videos, one of the captives shivers as he is held in a stress position and surrounded by Russian security agents.
‘Attacker paid by a preacher’
Speaking in poor Russian, he confesses to attacking the concert hall because he had been paid “by a preacher”.
“Money. I did it for money,” he said, gasping for breath. “I’ve only received half of it.”
Russian media reported that the suspects were from Tajikistan, a Muslim Central Asian country – formerly part of the Soviet Union – that borders Afghanistan, where IS is active.
In another video, a second suspect is shown speaking via a Tajik translator.
Passports from Tajikistan were also reportedly found in the getaway car, according to a Russian lawmaker.
Kremlin deflecting security failings
The interior ministry said all four of the alleged gunmen were “foreign nationals” but did not specify from where. Russia’s security services have said that they have arrested 11 suspects in total over the attack.
Western analysts said the attack was likely to have been a genuine Islamic terrorist attack and that the Kremlin was now trying to score propaganda points by deflecting from its security failings.
“The attack in Moscow was an act of terrorism, full stop,” said Samuel Greene, a professor of Russian Politics at King’s College London. “Having failed to prevent it, the Kremlin will likely look for a way to use it, which may well mean blaming Ukraine.”
Other analysts said that the attack had undermined one of the Kremlin’s consistent core messages that ordinary Russians can depend on it for their security, embarrassing Putin who now wanted to shift the blame onto his most sophisticated enemies – Ukraine and its Western allies.
Hanna Notte, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic Studies think tank in Washington, said that Kremlin propaganda already portrays IS as a US-backed project and that conflating it with Ukrainian security operations was straightforward.
“Russia has claimed for two years that the US is sending Islamic State fighters from Syria to join Ukraine’s army,” she said. “With Islamic State claiming the attack, Russian attempts to establish some Ukraine connection might not end.”
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