The Crocus City shopping center is located in the satellite city of Krasnogorsk, 25 kilometers northwest of Moscow.
It is home to one of the most popular concert halls and is reached by metro from the center of the capital.
It has 6,200 seats and stars like Eric Clapton and Dua Lipa have performed there.
On Friday night the room was full of people waiting for the concert of Picnic, a Russian progressive rock band.
Shortly before 8:00 p.m. (two hours less in mainland Spain), a group of at least four people dressed in camouflage and carrying assault weapons entered the ground floor of the Crocus City and opened fire indiscriminately.
Minutes later, the terrorists are no longer at the entrance—they have gone inside.
Several people try to leave the building.
At least one video (posted just 45 minutes after the assault began) shows a large group fleeing that route and helping the wounded.
Several corpses are also seen.
The terrorists reach the amphitheater of the concert hall, located at one end of the building.
According to the Russian media Shot, it takes less than ten minutes to get here.
Inside the huge room, videos show the first moments of unrest.
Many people are scared by the noises coming from outside.
An order is heard to evacuate the building.
Then shots ring out and people run away.
At some point a fire broke out in the shopping center.
According to the Russian channel Shot, the terrorists set fire to the place: Russian authorities have stated that they were carrying “flammable liquids” and explosives.
The local press says that numerous people, including children, were trapped in the burning part of the building.
The fire intensified after an explosion, according to
The New York Times
, which would later cause the auditorium roof to collapse, as Moscow emergency services have confirmed.
Images of the fire during the attack in Moscow
The terrorists would have left the building aboard a white Renault before 8:15 p.m. local time, according to the Russian press.
The events after the attack
Russian authorities have not given official confirmation of the authorship.
However, on Friday night the Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack.
The United States authorities attribute it to the ISIS-K branch, which has carried out attacks against the Russian Embassy in Afghanistan, the last in 2022.
The Russian secret service has reported the arrest of 11 people, all foreigners, including four who “directly participated” in the Crocus City attack.
Russia has a long history of terrorist attacks, which shook the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union and during the first years of Vladimir Putin's rule.
In 2004, a group of Chechen terrorists took 1,200 hostages at a school in the city of Beslan;
334 people died, including 186 children.
This Friday is the worst mass shooting in Russia at least since the 1990s.
Two weeks ago, the United States and the United Kingdom warned of possible terrorist attacks in Russia, shortly after Russian intelligence services announced that they had thwarted an attack by the Islamic State on a synagogue in the Russian capital.
Washington stressed in its warning the risk that “events with many people, such as concerts,” would be attacked.
Russian President Vladimir Putin downplayed the threat: “This all looks like outright blackmail with the intention of intimidating and destabilizing our society.”
Putin, re-elected president seven days ago in an election without real opposition, spoke to the nation this Saturday, 19 hours after the attack, in a five-minute speech.
He has not mentioned ISIS, and has suggested that Ukrainian citizens may have helped some of the attackers cross the border.
The Government of kyiv, as well as official United States agencies, have denied any involvement of this country with the attack.
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