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Moscow Blast Kills Seven; Putin Warns Russians Not to Jump to Conclusions

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, though, we go to Moscow, a follow up on the blast that happened yesterday at about 6:00 p.m. Moscow time, killing seven people in the middle of that city yesterday, a number of people injured as well.

With more, we have Steve Harrigan joining us live,

Steve what is the latest...

STEVE HARRIGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, just a short...

KAGAN: Go ahead.

HARRIGAN: Daryn, just a short time ago, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, issued a warning to Russians, although he has been the man who has been spearheading this war again Chechnya, really taking the lead in directing that war. He warned Russian not to jump to conclusions after this blast. He warned them that it would be wrong, it would be a big mistake, in his words, to blame any one ethnic group for Tuesday's blast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): If we accept this as a terrorist act, then I would say it would be wrong to scapegoat an entire nationality for this, to seek a Chechen connection, or any other. In general, it isn't very correct when we attach some kind of label to a whole nationalities because criminals and terrorists, above all, have no nationality nor religion. But, of course, we need to know where the threat is coming from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIGAN: Of course, that could be a tough sell to the Russian people. We were out on the street today in Moscow talking to people, and really their anger was white hot. They were clearly blaming the Chechens for this explosion, a blast that killed seven Russians, five women, two men, also 90 wounded; many of those people still in critical condition, burned from the blast. It's not clear whether they will live or die. So that casualty figure could go up.

Of course, that blast came at rush hour at about 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. And during the day, today, we saw a lot of visitors going back to the blast site, some people laying flowers at the scene, other people bowing their heads in prayer.

Right now, federal security agents say they have detained two men for questioning, but no real further details, other than that the men are in their late 20s, early 30s, both from the North Caucuses region, where Chechnya is located. One of them is, in fact, an ethnic Chechen -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Steve Harrigan, in Moscow, thank you very much.

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