This tragedy is a big challenge both for the victims and the whole of Russia, Mr Putin said at a news conference on the results of the Russian-Azerbaijani talks.
The Russian President stressed that after such tragedies in Russia, many foreign leaders had called for negotiations with terrorists.
In this connection, Mr Putin stressed that the generally accepted way to fight terrorism was the absolute refusal to have any dialogue with terrorists, because negotiation only encourages them to commit new even bloodier crimes. Russia has never done so and would not do so in the future, Mr Putin said.