Following a recommendation from the security service, Russian Federation banned all flights to Egypt and began evacuating its citizens from the country.
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On Tuesday, Russia’s security service said a homemade explosive device brought down a passenger plane over Egypt last month that killed 224 people, calling it a “terrorist” act.
Russian president Vladmir Putin has vowed to find and hold accountable those responsible, saying in a statement, “We will find them any place on the planet and we will punish them”.
For weeks following the crash on October 31 there was speculation about what had brought the plane down, with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group posting a claim of responsibility shortly after the incident. In addition to Russian and Egyptian probes into the cause of the disaster, French forensic investigators are involved on behalf of the Airbus jet’s manufacturers and Ireland, which licensed the doomed plane, has also sent a team.
The Islamic State group said the attack was retaliation for Russia’s air campaign against IS and other groups in Syria, where Moscow wants to preserve the rule of President Bashar Assad.
“It (our campaign) must be intensified in such a way that the criminals understand that retribution is inevitable”, said Putin. After the examination on all these objects, we have found traces of a foreign-made explosive substance, Bortnikov said. “We will find them in any point of the globe and they will be punished”, the president stressed.
“The Egyptian authorities affirm they will take into consideration the investigations that the Russian side reached…in the comprehensive investigation”, Premier Sherif Ismail said.
Alexander Bortnikov, the chief of Russia’s FSB domestic security agency, said that a bomb equivalent to 2.2 pounds of TNT exploded on board the aircraft, according to the Kremlin.
A senior French government source said Russian Federation had launched air strikes against the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria on Tuesday, signalling Moscow was becoming more concerned about the threat posed by IS.
The bomb, Bortnikov told Putin, explained why fragments of the plane were scattered over a large area, the Kremlin website said.
Various media outlets reported Tuesday that Egypt was holding two members of the Sharm el-Sheikh airport ground crew in connection to the case, but Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry flatly denied those reports.
Egypt’s interior ministry said on Tuesday that there was a review of screening measures for passengers and luggage, “and enhancement of search procedures for passengers and workers upon entry into the airport”.
“What’s changed is less that France has changed, but that Russian Federation has”, said the official.
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He promised that Russian Federation would be acting “in strict compliance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter envisaging the right of countries to self-defense”.
