Mr President, we have studied the passengers’ personal belongings
and luggage and fragments of the plane that crashed
in Egypt on October 31.
An expert examination of all these objects has found traces
of foreign-made explosives.
According to our experts, a self-made explosive device equivalent up
to 1 kg of TNT was set off on board,
which explains why the aircraft broke up in mid air and its fragments
were scattered over a large area.
We can say with confidence that this was a terrorist act.
Let’s once again pay tribute to the crash victims.
A minute of silence.
This is not the first time Russia experiences barbaric terrorist crime,
usually without any obvious internal or external causes,
the way it was with the explosion at the railway station
in Volgograd at the end of 2013. We remember everything and everyone.
The murder of our people over Sinai is one of the bloodiest crimes
in terms of the lives it claimed.
We will not dry our tears – this will remain forever in our
hearts and minds. However, this would not stop us from
finding and punishing the perpetrators.
We have to do it without any period of limitation;
we need to know all their names.
We will search wherever they may be hiding.
We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them.
In these efforts, we need to rely on people who share the moral values
that lie at the basis of our policy,
in this case our foreign and security policy,
our counterterrorism policy.
Our aviation should not simply continue military operations in Syria,
but enhance them so as to make it clear to the criminals
that vengeance is inevitable.
I would like to ask the Defence Ministry and the General
Staff to make their proposals. I will check the progress of this work.
I would like the Russian Foreign Ministry to turn to all our partners.
We rely on all our friends in these efforts,
including our search for and punishment of the perpetrators.
We will act in compliance with Article 51 of the United Nations
Charter, which envisages the right of a state to self-defence.
Whoever tries to help the perpetrators ought to know that they would
bear full responsibility for any attempts to harbour them.
I would like all our special services to focus on this work.