People attending a concert in suburban Moscow were targeted by gunmen. The building was destroyed by fire and there were more than 130 people dead. Russian authorities have arrested four suspects. President Putin said that they were caught while trying to leave and go to Ukraine.
Kyiv said it wasn’t involved in the attack on the music venue in Krasnogorsk, and a group from Afghanistan’s Islamic State claimed they did it.
Putin did not talk about IS in his speech, and Kyiv said he and other Russian politicians are lying about Ukraine being involved in the attack to make people more excited about Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has been going on for three years.
US officials who gather information confirmed the IS affiliate’s claim that it was responsible for the attack, a US official told The Associated Press. American spies found out that the IS group was planning to attack Moscow. They told the Russian government about it a few weeks ago. The official was told about the issue but wasn’t allowed to talk about the secret information publicly. They spoke to the AP anonymously.
Putin said that 11 people were arrested for the attack. More than 100 people at the concert were hurt and the venue in Moscow was left destroyed. He said it was a terrible and violent attack by terrorists. The Russian authorities caught four suspected gunmen as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a prepared route on the border.
Russian news showed videos of people being arrested and questioned. One person said he was paid by someone he didn’t know to take part in the attack.
The Russian news said the shooters were from Tajikistan, a country in Central Asia that used to be part of the Soviet Union. It is mostly Muslim and next to Afghanistan. Around 15 million people from Tajikistan have worked in Russia and some of them are now Russian citizens.
Tajikistan’s foreign ministry said it didn’t know about other Tajiks involved in the raid. They didn’t respond to a request for comment about the arrests on Saturday.
Many Russian people who strongly disagree with Tajik immigrants wanted the government to take strong action against them. But Putin said no, and he believes that no one will be able to create problems or divisions in our diverse society using force.
He said that Sunday will be a day of sadness and that more security rules were made in all of Russia.
The attack was the deadliest in Russia in a long time. It’s a big problem for the Russian leader and happened just a few days after he secured his position in power for another six years. This came after a harsh crackdown on people who disagreed with the government, which was the strictest since the time of the Soviet Union.
133 people died in the attack, making it the worst in Russia in a long time.
The raid was a big problem for the Russian leader and it happened soon after he got more power in the country for six more years. He had cracked down on people who disagreed with him before the vote.
Some people on Russian social media were wondering how the government, which has been cracking down on any opposition and controlling the media, did not stop the attack even though they knew about it. Be careful, be safe, take caution.
The attack happened two weeks after the United States. The US Embassy in Moscow warned Americans to stay away from busy places because extremists are planning to attack large gatherings like concerts. Many other embassies from Western countries also gave the same warning. Earlier this week, Putin criticized the warning as an attempt to scare Russians.
On Saturday, investigators searched through the burned remains of the hall to find more victims. Officials said the number of people who died may increase.
Putin said the attackers tried to escape to Ukraine. Russian lawmakers also blamed Ukraine right after the attack.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, strongly disagreed with Moscow’s accusations. He said that Putin and his team are trying to blame Ukraine for their actions and are not taking care of their own people.
“They are setting fire to our cities and trying to blame Ukraine,” he said in a message on his app. “They hurt and sexually assault our people, and then they say it’s their fault. ” They brought a lot of their fighters here to Ukraine to fight us, and they don’t care what happens in their own country.
Pictures from Russian state media showed that there were still ambulances and fire trucks outside the destroyed Crocus City Hall. The building was able to hold more than 6,000 people and it hosted many important events, such as the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant with Donald Trump.
On Friday, many people went to a place to see a concert by the Russian rock band Picnic.
Videos on the internet showed people with guns shooting at close range at the place, and hurting innocent people. Russian news said that the attackers threw bombs that caused a fire in the building. The fire became big and destroyed the building’s roof.
Dave Primov, who was able to stay safe during the attack, told the AP that the gunmen were shooting at the people in the front rows without aiming. He said the hall was a mess because people at the concert started to panic, run, and bump into each other as they tried to get out. Some people fell and others walked over them.
After he and others crawled out of the hall and into nearby rooms, he heard small explosives going off and smelled something burning as the attackers set the building on fire.
IS has been trying to harm Russia for a long time, especially after Russia’s military attack in Syria. IS’s Afghanistan branch said it attacked a big group of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk, in a statement on their Aamaq news agency.
On Saturday, the group said on Aamaq that four men attacked using guns, a pistol, knives, and firebombs. The attackers shot at the crowd and used knives to kill people at the concert. They did this because they believe Islam is being fought against by other countries.
In October 2015, a bomb made by IS caused a Russian plane to crash in Sinai, and all 224 people on board died. Most of them were Russian tourists coming back from Egypt.
The group mostly works in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa. They have also said they did several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other areas in recent years. It got soldiers from Russia and other places that used to be part of the Soviet Union.
The Afghanistan branch of the group is called ISIS-K or IS-K. It got its name from Khorasan Province, a place that was big in the past and covered parts of Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia.
The affiliate has lots of fighters who have done many attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over in 2021. They are enemies with the Taliban.
ISIS-K did the suicide bombing at Kabul airport in August 2021. It killed 13 American troops and about 170 Afghans during the US withdrawal. They also admitted to causing a bomb attack in Kerman, Iran, in January. The attack killed 95 people at a memorial procession.
On March 7, the US Embassy warned about possible attacks, and Russia’s top security agency said they stopped an attack on a synagogue in Moscow and killed some members of a group linked to IS near the Russian capital. A few days ago, the Russian government said that six people believed to be members of the IS group were shot and killed in a fight in Ingushetia, a region in Russia.
Reporters Michael Balsamo in Washington and Colleen Long in Wilmington, Delaware, helped with this article.