Responsibility for twin suicide bombings last month in the southern city of Volgograd has been claimed by an Islamic militant group in Russia's North Caucasus, who has now released a video threatening to strike the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the Associated Press reported.
The bombings, which killed 34 people and heightened security fears before next month's Winter Games, had no previous claims of responsibility until the militant group Vilayat Dagestan came forward in a statement posted with the video in its website yesterday.
"If you hold these Olympics, we will give you a present for the innocent Muslim blood being spilled all around the world: In Afghanistan, in Somalia, in Syria," said two Russian-speaking men in the video. They added that "for the tourists who come, there will be a present, too."
According to the AP, the video shows two men, identified as Suleiman and Abdurakhman, preparing explosives and strapping it to their bodies. They will allegedly be the suicide bombers.
To prevent any terror attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed his government "will do whatever it takes" to keep everyone safe during next month's Winter Olympics in Sochi, ABC News reported.
"If we allow ourselves to be weak, feel weak, let our fear to be seen, by doing that we'll assist those terrorists in achieving their goals," Putin told ABC News. "Our job, needless to say, the job of the Olympics host, is to ensure security of the participants in the Olympics and visitors to this festival of sports and we will do whatever it takes."
Putin added, "We would try and make sure that security measures were not be in your face, did not put pressure on the athletes and visitors or reporters. At the same time we'll do everything within our power to make sure those measures are efficient."
According to ABC News, excerpts from the interview will air on Friday's "World News with Diane Sawyer" and much more will air on a special edition of Sunday's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."
The security plan for the Sochi Olympics is massive.
Dubbed the "ring of steel," an operation has been set in motion by the Russian authorities in and around Sochi.
"Some 40,000 troops are being deployed, along with anti-aircraft missiles and teams of Cossacks, the traditional fur-hatted defenders of the tsars, patrolling the streets. Vehicles are being inspected at checkpoints set up around the region. Russia has also reportedly set up a sophisticated electronic surveillance system," ABC News reported.
Dubbed "Putin's Games" as the president personally oversaw much of the Sochi Olympics' planning, it's being seen as his effort to showcase Russia's return as a world leader after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But Putin denied the Olympics is his personal project, according to ABC News.
"It's not my personal ambitions. It's the direct interest, concentrated interest of the State and of our people," he said. "Naturally, when I see it and when we do it, of course, I take pleasure in it. But, once again, this isn't to satisfy some ambition."
"There is also a moral dimension to it," Putin said. "I'll tell you about it openly. There is nothing to hide or be embarrassed by here. Following the collapse of the USSR, following hard and, let's put it bluntly, blood-soaked developments in the Caucasus, the overall state society was depressing and pessimistic. We need to cheer up, we need to understand and feel that we are capable of pulling off major, large-scale projects and do so on schedule and with good quality."
