Putin, mourners attend memorial service for Russian ambassador

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Putin, mourners attend memorial service for Russian ambassador

Russian President Vladimir Putin has attended a memorial service for Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, who was shot dead in Ankara on Monday by an off-duty policeman.

The mourners gathered at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow for the service. President Putin postponed his annual press conference to take part in the ceremony.

CCTV’s Julia Lyubova reports from Moscow.Follow Julia Lyubova on Twitter @julialyubova

Russia has laid to rest its Ambassador Andrey Karlov, who was gunned down in Ankara this week. High-level officials, including the Russian President, attended a memorial ceremony in Moscow to pay tributes to the killed Ambassador.

Andrey Karlov’s body was repatriated to Moscow on Tuesday. The same plane took 18 Russian investigators and Foreign Ministry officials to Ankara to participate in the investigation.

The Kremlin has so far refused to speculate whether Andrey Karlov’s murderer acted alone or was part of a larger group. It said the murder was a blow to Turkey’s prestige but said it wouldn’t harm relations between the two countries.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said there is ‘no doubt’ that the assassin was a member of the network of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. The government refers to the followers of Gulen as the ‘Gulenist Terrorist Network’, or ‘FETO’.

However, the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen has denied any involvement in the killing of the Russian Ambassador. Vladimir Putin had posthumously given the ambassador the Hero of Russia award – the country’s highest military medal.