French President calls "cynical" Russia's attempts to link Ukraine with terrorist attack near Moscow

French President Emmanuel Macron responded to Russian leader Vladimir Putin's claims that the ISIS-Khorasan terrorists who carried out the attack at the Crocus City Hall concert hall near Moscow were allegedly ready to cross the border to the "Ukrainian side."

"I think that it would be both cynical and counterproductive for Russia itself and the security of its citizens to use this context to try and turn it against Ukraine," Macron said, as reported by Reuters.

According to him, French defence intelligence indicates that it is the branch of the Islamic State group that is responsible for the attack in Russia's Moscow Oblast.

"The information available to us ... as well as to our main partners, indicates indeed that it was an entity of the Islamic State which instigated this attack," Macron said, referring to ISIS-Khorasan.

At the same time, the president pointed out that the branch of the Islamic State group, which took responsibility for the attack in the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow Oblast, made several attempts to attack in France.

On Friday 22 March, a shooting incident occurred at a concert by the band Piknik at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed at least 137 people.

Following the events in Russia, France announced that the level of terrorist threat had been raised to its highest.

Germany also warns of a significant threat from Islamist terrorists.