The mourning ceremony for assassinated Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov took place in Russia’s Foreign Ministry and was followed by a funeral service at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in downtown Moscow. Earlier, President Vladimir Putin awarded Karlov with the nation’s highest honorary title posthumously — Hero of the Russian Federation.

On Dec. 21, the Russian government adopted a special document titled “Procedure for the Interment of Slain or Dead Ambassadors of Russia” that stipulates the procedure for bidding farewell with military honors. The ambassador’s alma mater — Moscow State Institute of International Relations-MGIMO University — established a scholarship named after Karlov, while Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok supported the State Duma proposal to name the university after Karlov. Among other achievements, Karlov was an authority on Korean studies and has long worked with the university while stationed in Pyongyang, North Korea, as the Russian ambassador before his posting in Ankara.

Meanwhile, Russia’s political and expert communities are mulling over potential masterminds behind the assassination and what responses Moscow has at its disposal. Quite expectedly, the main question everyone is pondering is, “Whom does it benefit?” There currently are three major groups of answers to this:

• External forces who oppose the reconciliation between Moscow and Ankara (a strong insinuation that there might be an American, British or Saudi involvement).
• Internal forces that may be connected with Islamist groups and that also aren’t particularly excited about the deals Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been recently clinching. This group is believed to include an involvement of someone from the Turkish security apparatus.
• Terrorist groups outside Turkey who have lost — militarily and politically — in Aleppo and wanted revenge on Moscow.

Proponents of all three versions point to the very timing of the assassination: right in between the UN Security Council’s adoption of a resolution on Aleppo that by and large reflected Moscow’s position on the conflict (Dec. 19) and a day before the critical meetings of foreign and defense ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey in Moscow (Dec. 20). If successful — the argument goes — it would have sidelined the United States, silenced British criticism and come as a blow to the Saudi’s own standing on Syria. It might have also made life for the extremist groups in Syria more complicated: Even though Tehran, Moscow and Ankara would each continue on its own path, there seemed to be an understanding that the course toward a military confrontation was politically costly and financially weary. Besides, in recent months, Moscow and Ankara have been having top-level political and military consultations, and as Pinar Tremblay accurately noted in Al-Monitor, Karlov has been a crucial interlocutor in all of them. Therefore, using this logic, Russian politicians and experts grouped around each of the three versions depending on the degree of their antipathy regarding the West, the Islamist extremists or the level of distrust toward Turkey.