Putin vows to intensify Syria strikes after Sinai plane attack

In order to gather more information, Russian Federation has offered $50 million to any lead that could get them to capture those who perpetrated the attack.

Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB security agency told Russian President Vladimir Putin: ‘One can say unambiguously that it was a terror act.

“The murder of our people in Sinai is one of the bloodiest by the number of victims of such crimes”.

“We won’t wipe the tears from our hearts and souls”. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, had already claimed responsibility, saying it was punishing Moscow for its air campaign in Syria.

Putin ordered Russia’s foreign ministry to contact all Moscow’s partners for assistance and said that it was counting on “our friends” to help find and punish those responsible for the plane attack.

Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible.

“We will search for them everywhere, no matter where they are hiding”, Putin reportedly said Tuesday.

The President assured they will find the terrorists anywhere in the world, and that Russian Federation will act in line with the Article 51 of the UN Charter, which reaffirms the right of countries to defend themselves.

The Russian Security Service (FSB) said on Tuesday that traces of explosives were found among the debris, after weeks of speculation about what had caused the crash that killed 224 people.

Russian Federation had taken samples of sand from the crash site for analysis, sources at the civil aviation ministry confirmed, and Egypt would include the conclusions of that analysis in the official investigation once they had been formally received.

An Islamic State affiliate in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula claimed it blew up the plane in retaliation for Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria against the organisation and other militants fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The statement came from Aleksandr Bortnikov, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service, CNN reported.

‘There is no statute of limitation on this’.

ISIS claimed responsibility soon after the crash. “We need to know all of their names”, Putin said.

Although Russian Federation has not officially designated ISIS as the culprit, Putin added that Russia’s military operations inside Syria will not just continue, but will intensify “so that the criminals will understand that revenge is unavoidable”, CNN reports.

Separately, France targeted IS bases in northern Syria on Tuesday with fresh air strikes. “They had inside intelligence giving them that information, so that’s not surprising to anybody in the airline industry, given that the British government took very strong action immediately”. Hollande will meet next week with US President Barack Obama and Putin, as part of broad diplomatic push to end the war in Syria.