It has been a consequential week for Moscow by all counts. The week began with President Vladimir Putin securing an unprecedented fifth presidential tenure in Moscow’s corridors of power, surpassing Joseph Stalin. In between, the European Union Leaders’ summit in Brussels announced new sanctions on 33 individuals and two entities linked to the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. New economic sanctions and tariffs were announced.
By all counts, this is the country’s worst terrorist attack in decades. Panicked eyewitnesses saw the terrorists dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying automatic weapons.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency on Telegram on Friday.
The Kremlin has said that four people believed to be directly involved in the attack had been arrested while trying to cross the border into Ukraine, according to TASS and other state media outlets.
President Putin also blamed Ukraine for the deadly attack in his video message on Saturday (March 23), when he claimed that a “window” was prepared for attackers to escape to Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Telegram: “Now we know in which country these bloody bastards planned to hide from persecution – Ukraine.”
Ukraine strenuously denied any involvement. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Friday: “We consider such accusations to be a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society, create conditions for increased mobilization of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community.”
Read more in The Capitals this weekend.
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka’s government in the capital Colombo greenlit a proposal aimed at overhauling the country’s parliamentary election system.
While the next parliamentary election is slated for August 2025, internal discussions within the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) have sparked speculation about the possibility of rearranging the electoral timeline, potentially prioritising the parliamentary polls ahead of the presidential contest.
A cabinet sub-committee has been tasked with devising a hybrid electoral system for parliamentary representation. Under the proposed reforms, 160 members would be elected through a first-past-the-post system, while an additional 65 members would be selected via proportional representation, maintaining the total number of MPs at 225.
Currently, Sri Lanka’s electoral framework allocates 196 seats based on district-level proportional representation, with an additional 29 members appointed based on cumulative votes garnered from the nationwide ballot.
New Delhi, India
The Chief Minister of the Indian National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, who rose to power about a decade ago through an anti-corruption plank against the previous Congress government, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate, the country’s financial crime agency, over Delhi excise policy scam case.
Accused of corruption in the city’s liquor business policy, Kejriwal’s detention, less than a month before India begins voting on April 19, is a setback for his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the larger opposition alliance.
Also watch | Kejriwal arrest: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal arrested last night
All the main leaders of his decade-old party are in jail in connection with the liquor case.
Kejriwal, 55, claimed he would not resign and would run the city government from jail if he had to.
AAP is part of the 27-member ‘INDIA’ bloc which has denied graft investigations against multiple opposition leaders and has labeled them as politically motivated smear campaigns.
