MOSCOW – Russia is demanding that Ukraine hand over all people connected with terrorist acts committed in Russia, including the head of the country’s SBU security service, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on March 31.

The SBU immediately dismissed the Russian demand as “pointless” and said the Russian ministry had “forgotten” that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement listed violent incidents that have occurred in Russia since the Kremlin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, including bombings that killed the daughter of a prominent nationalist and a war blogger, and another incident in which a writer was seriously hurt.

It said investigation of these incidents showed that “the traces of these crimes lead to Ukraine”.

“Russia has turned over to Ukrainian authorities its demands... for the immediate arrest and extradition of all those connected to the terrorist acts in question,” the statement said.

The ministry said those to be handed over included SBU head Vasyl Maliuk, who has acknowledged that his service was behind attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland since the Kremlin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia seized control of Crimea in 2014, and the bridge was built after the region was annexed.

“The Russian side demands that the Kyiv regime immediately cease all support for terrorist activity, extradite guilty parties and compensate the victims for damages,” the statement said.

“Ukraine’s violation of its obligations under anti-terrorist conventions will result in it being held to account in international legal terms.”

‘Pointless, cynical’

Ukraine’s SBU said the Russian demands “sound particularly cynical coming from the terrorist state itself... Therefore, any words from the Russian Foreign Ministry are pointless”.

The SBU referred to the arrest warrant against Mr Putin issued by the International Criminal Court in connection with the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia and said “the tribunal in The Hague is waiting for him”.

The statement referred – but only in an oblique sense – to the mass shooting in March at a concert hall outside Moscow in which 144 people died.

Terror group ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, and US officials said they had intelligence showing it was carried out by the network’s Afghan branch, ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K.

Russian investigators said last week they had found proof that the concert hall gunmen were linked to “Ukrainian nationalists”. Kyiv denies any connection with the attack.

Russian news agencies on March 31 quoted Mr Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, the country’s most important criminal investigation body, as saying that work was proceeding to determine who was behind the attack. REUTERS