TheCable

The Russian government is offering a $50 million reward for information about those who brought its plane down in Egypt.

The 224 people on board the ill-fated aircraft were killed and Russia has confirmed that a bomb was responsible for the incident.

Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s federal security service (FSB), confirmed this during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.

“The plane was blown up by a homemade explosive device equivalent to 1 kilogramme of TNT, due to which the plane broke up in mid-air,” he said.

“This explains the spread of parts of the plane’s fuselage over a large distance.

“The traces of a foreign-made explosive were found in the debris as well as on the belongings of those on board,” he said.

Putin said government would find the culprits anywhere in the world and “punish them”.

“This murder of our people in Sinai is among the bloodiest crimes,” he said.

“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.”

“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.”

An Islamic State affiliate active in Sinai claimed responsibility for the deadliest civil aviation disaster in Russian history.