President V. Putin has directed Russian special operations services to take all steps to search for and liquidate the criminals who murdered four Russian diplomats in Iraq, says a press-release of the Kremlin administration.

Today at a meeting with the Saudi Arabian Prince, who is in Moscow at the invitation of Moscow's Mayor Yury Luzhkov, the President said that Russia would be grateful to all its friends for supplying any information about the criminals took hostage and then murdered four Russian diplomats in Baghdad.

"The President has directed Russian special operations services to take all steps to search for and destroy the criminals who committed that atrocious act", says the Kremlin press-release.