As of: March 28, 2024, 5:36 a.m
By: Sophia Lother, Nils Hinsberger, Marcus Giebel, Franziska Schwarz
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Press
Split
EU spokesman appeals to Russia not to use the attack in Moscow as an opportunity for further escalations in the Ukraine war. The news ticker.
Attack
in
Moscow
: Russia is examining the involvement of Ukraine and Western states
No escape to
Ukraine
: Lukashenko says Moscow attackers have fled to Belarus
IS
and
the West
are working together?: Russia's intelligence chief makes serious allegations against Ukraine
Update from March 27th, 5:34 a.m.:
The Russian Emergency Management Ministry has corrected the number of deaths after the attack in Moscow late on Wednesday evening (March 27th) to 143 when publishing a list of the names of the victims. The death toll had previously been officially given as 139.
On Tuesday, the director of the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, said that secret services from Western countries and Ukraine needed the attack to cause panic in Russia. Russian investigators are now investigating possible Western involvement in the incident. However, an offshoot of the radical IS militia had already claimed responsibility for the attack several times.
Employees of the Russian Emergencies Ministry clear the rubble of the Krokus town hall. © IMAGO / ITAR-TASS
Update from March 27th, 4:28 p.m.:
According to the Russian health authority, the number of people killed in the attack in Moscow has risen to 140. One injured person died in hospital on Wednesday. “The doctors did everything possible,” said the head of the authority, Mikhail Murashko. Of the total of 380 injured, 80 people are still in hospital, reported the
dpa
. Four of them are in critical condition, said Muraschko.
EU is “concerned” about Russia’s allegations
Update from March 27th, 4:03 p.m.:
The European Union's foreign policy spokesman, Peter Stano, has announced that the EU is "concerned" about Russia's allegations that Ukraine was involved in the attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow. There is no evidence for such allegations.
There are fears within the EU that Russia could use the attack to escalate violence in the war against Ukraine,
Euronews
reported . “We call on the Russian authorities not to use the terrorist attack in Moscow as a pretext or motivation for intensifying illegal aggression against Ukraine,” Stano said last Monday. Russian ruler Vladimir Putin should also refrain from “internal repression against critics of the Russian regime”.
In a speech after the attack, Putin said that the suspected perpetrators wanted to flee to Ukraine. The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, claimed on
Deutschlandfunk
that this was an attempt to "distract the world from its daily terror against Ukraine."
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Russia is investigating the involvement of Western states in the Moscow attack
Update from March 27th, 12:40 p.m.:
Russian investigators say they are examining possible involvement of the West in the attack on a concert hall near Moscow. This was done at the request of MPs, the investigative agency announced in Moscow on Wednesday. The possible “organization, financing and execution of terrorist attacks” against Russia by the United States and other Western countries is being investigated. On Tuesday, the director of the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, said that secret services from Western countries and Ukraine needed the attack to cause panic in Russia. “The USA, Great Britain and Ukraine are behind the attack on the Moscow Concert Hall,” Bortnikov said.
Ukraine immediately called the accusation a lie. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron wrote on the short message service X: "Russia's claims about the West and Ukraine in connection with the attack on Crocus City Hall are complete nonsense."
Update from March 26th, 9:38 p.m.:
Four days after the Moscow terrorist attack, the search for missing people in the burned-out and partially collapsed concert hall has been stopped. “I can report that there are no more victims under the rubble,” said Sergei Poletykin, head of the Moscow Region Emergency Management Agency. “The search dog handlers have finished their work, the rescuers have finished their work.” The governor of the Moscow area, Andrei Vorobyov, said 8,000 square meters of area had been searched. Around 1,000 civil defense forces were deployed, he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Update from March 26th, 7:25 p.m.:
Another suspect is said to have been arrested in the wake of the terrorist attack on the “Crocus City Hall” in Moscow. This brings the number of suspects arrested to eight people, reported the
dpa
. The suspect is said to be a 31-year-old Russian citizen, Russian news agency
Interfax
reported , citing Moscow's Basmanny Court.
He is accused of renting an apartment to the alleged terrorists before the crime, but he is said to have denied this in court. He thought they were normal tenants.
Statements from the suspects are intended to prove Ukraine's involvement
Update from March 26th, 6:20 p.m.:
Statements from the alleged attackers in Moscow should corroborate the lead to Ukraine, said Russia's secret service chief, Alexander Bortnikov. “The primary data we received from the detainees confirms this. Therefore, we will continue to refine the information that will show us whether the presence and participation of the Ukrainian side is real or not,” Bortnikov wrote on Telegram. The statements cannot be independently verified.
Burtnikov had previously argued that the terrorist attack was helping Western intelligence services and Ukraine spread panic in Russian society, Russian state news agency
RIA Novosti
reported .
Lukashenko contradicts Putin - alleged perpetrators from Moscow are said to have fled to Belarus
Update from March 26th, 5:25 p.m.:
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has announced that the suspected attackers wanted to flee from Moscow to his country. The suspects drove a car to the Belarusian border area of Bryansk, the
dpa
reported . In doing so, Lukashenko contradicts his confidant and President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, who has been claiming for days that the attackers wanted to flee to Ukraine.
After the Belarusian government became aware of the attempted escape into their country, security measures were increased, Lukashenko told the state news agency
Belta
. “That’s why they turned around and drove towards the Ukrainian-Russian border.”
Russia's intelligence chief raises allegations against the West and Ukraine
Update from March 26th, 3:15 p.m.:
The director of the Russian secret service FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, has commented on the attack in Moscow. According to Bortnikov, the attack was carried out by radical Islamists. According to Bortnikov, Western and Ukrainian secret services were directly involved in the implementation and planning, the AFP news agency reported.
The person responsible for the attack has not yet been identified, but Russia understands who is said to have organized the attack. Burtnikov explained that the Ukrainian secret service was involved by saying that the alleged attackers wanted to flee to Ukraine after the attack, where they were greeted as “heroes”. No evidence has yet been provided to support the allegations. Ukraine denies any involvement in the terrorist attack.
Raid in Turkey after Moscow attack – more than 140 arrests
Update from March 26th, 2:40 p.m.:
According to Turkish security circles, two of the suspected Moscow attackers are said to have entered Russia from Turkey on March 2nd. Due to the fact that the people only stayed in Turkey for a short time, it is not assumed that they became radicalized in the country, reported the
dpa
. Even before the attack in Moscow, Turkey had stepped up its action against IS members. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, more than 140 suspects with ties to IS have been arrested in nationwide raids. The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, spoke at an election campaign event that “external powers” had unleashed the terrorist militia of the so-called Islamic State on Turkey.
Update from March 26th, 12:30 p.m.:
The Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, holds Ukraine responsible for the attack on the concert hall near Moscow. The Russian news portal Shot publishes a video in which one of its reporters asks Patrushev as he passes by who is responsible: “ISIS or Ukraine?” Patrushev replies: “Ukraine, of course.” Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly blamed “radical Islamists” for the attack held responsible (see report from March 25th, 7:25 p.m.).
Putin is counting on the Russian Prosecutor General's Office to do everything to ensure that criminals receive a fair punishment, as required by Russian law. At the same time, as he did at the weekend, he made it clear that he sees a Ukrainian trail. Russia wants to know “who the client is.” Putin therefore assumes that Islamists carried out the order for the mass murder, but that the masterminds are located elsewhere. He sees a motive in Ukraine, not IS.
The government in Kiev has denied any involvement. In contrast, the Afghan branch of the extremist organization Islamic State (IS or ISIS), ISPK, has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the crime in which at least 139 people were killed. As secretary of the important Security Council, which is chaired by President Vladimir Putin, Patrushev has a lot of influence and is a close confidant of the head of state.
Attack near Moscow: Two suspects were previously in Turkey
Update from March 26th, 11:30 a.m.:
According to Turkish information, two of those accused of the attack near Moscow had previously been in Turkey and were able to travel to Russia unhindered. The two Tajiks traveled from Istanbul to Moscow on the same flight on March 2nd and there was no arrest warrant against them, Turkish security circles said on Tuesday.
The two men were staying in a hotel in Istanbul. One of the two posted photos from Istanbul on online services several times in February. According to information from Turkish security circles, he said that he traveled to Turkey because his visa for Russia had expired.
“We assume that the two became radicalized in Russia as they were only in Turkey for a short time,” said a Turkish official who wished to remain anonymous. The two men with Tajik citizenship are among eleven suspects who were detained in Russia after the attack.
Putin blames “radical Islamists.”
Update from March 25th, 7:25 p.m.:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly blamed “radical Islamists” for the attack in the Moscow concert hall. “We know that the crime was committed by radical Islamists,” Putin said in a televised meeting on Monday. At least 137 people were killed in the attack. The suspected attackers were arrested shortly afterwards.
Update from March 25th, 2 p.m.:
The situation in Moscow remains extremely tense after the terrorist attack. According to
Nexta,
numerous people are currently being evacuated from at least three different shopping centers. This concerns the Mozaika shopping center on Koshukhovskaya Street, as well as two Gorod shopping centers in the Lefortovo region and on Ryazansky Prospect.
After the attack near Moscow: mass evacuation in clinic after bomb threat
Update from March 25, 11:50 a.m.:
According to
Nexta
, 700 people in Moscow were evacuated from the hospital where the victims of the terrorist attack are being treated. Telegram channels close to Russian law enforcement agencies report that
a bomb threat has been received at the
Pirogov National Medical and Surgical Center .
All hospital staff and patients were removed from the building. The information about the bomb is currently being verified.
After the attack near Moscow: Russia turns to the USA
Update from March 25, 11:30 a.m.:
The Kremlin declined on Monday to comment on the IS jihadist militia's commitment to the attack on a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow that left 137 dead. “The investigation is ongoing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “No coherent version has been put forward yet. We are only talking about preliminary data.” Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to visit the crime scene, Peskov added.
Update from March 25th, 11:10 a.m.:
Three days after the terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall, 97 injured people are still being treated in hospitals. This was announced by the head of the health administration in the Moscow region, Lyudmila Bolatayeva, on Monday (March 25). The patients are spread across clinics in the capital and the Moscow region. The injuries sustained varied in severity, she told Russian news agencies.
Russia turns to the US: “Think again”
Update from March 25, 9:00 a.m.:
Russia doubts that the radical militia Islamic State (IS/Isis) is responsible for the attack on the concert hall near Moscow. “Attention – a question for the White House: Are you sure it was Isis? Could you think about it again?” writes Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in an article for the newspaper
Komsomolskaya Pravda
. “The USA spread the specter of IS to distract from its wards in Kiev,” Zakharova continued.
The extremist organization IS claimed responsibility for the attack. The USA considers this to be credible. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet publicly mentioned the Islamists in connection with the attack, but has instead drawn a connection to Ukraine.
Suspected assassins in court
Update from March 25th, 6:00 a.m.:
The four suspected attackers in the most recent terrorist attack near Moscow were brought before the judge with severe facial injuries. The defendants were brought to the Basmanny Court in the Russian capital on Sunday by masked security forces and placed in glass cages with clearly visible bruises, swelling, abrasions and lacerations. One of them was apparently unable to walk and was strapped into a hospital chair with his eyes closed. Another had an unprofessional-looking bandage on his right ear.
Before the court hearing, video footage was circulated online showing that the arrested men were tortured and that one of them even had his ear cut off. It was not initially possible to independently verify whether the recordings were authentic.
The actual hearing took place behind closed doors, as the Russian state agency Tass reported. The terror suspect in the hospital chair who is said to have filmed the attack had “difficulty speaking”. The investigative committee accuses him and his three alleged accomplices of carrying out a deadly terrorist attack together.
After the attack in Moscow: France on terror alert
Update from March 24th, 10:02 p.m.:
After the attack on a concert hall near Moscow with more than 130 deaths, the French government is declaring the highest alert level in its country. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced this on Sunday evening in the online service X. In addition to the attack near Moscow, he also referred to “threats that our country is exposed to” as a reason for raising the threat level.
After terrorist attack near Moscow: First two suspects in court
Update from March 24th, 9:08 p.m.:
After the devastating terrorist attack near Moscow, a court in the Russian capital received an application for arrest warrants for two suspected actors in the bloody attack on Sunday evening. The investigative committee had already informed them that charges would be brought against them for the deadly terrorist attack that they carried out together, the state agency
Tass
reported . A total of eleven suspects were arrested after the crime, four of whom are considered to be the actual shooters.
Number of deaths after attack near Moscow rises
Update from March 24th, 6:23 p.m.:
The number of deaths after the attack in Moscow is increasing. As the Russian state news agency
Tass
reports with reference to the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee, there are now at least 137 deaths. “Identification of the dead continues. So far 137 bodies have been found. Three of them are children. “So far, 62 bodies have been identified,” it said.
Terror near Moscow: Islamic State terrorist militia releases video after attack in Russia
Update from March 24th, 4:50 p.m.:
After the terrorist attack near Moscow with more than 130 deaths, the Islamic State terrorist militia published a video of the bloody act. The propaganda channel Amak published an almost 90-second video on Sunday that is said to show the attackers at the site of the attack. Arabic subtitles say Amak shows “exclusive scenes” of “bloody attacks on Christians.”
Medvedev comments on the attack in Moscow
Update from March 24th, 4:15 p.m.:
The terrorist attack in Moscow has caused international horror. Now former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has also spoken out. In a post on the Telegram news service on Sunday, the politician loyal to Putin threatened to avenge the victims of the Moscow attack. “And everyone involved, no matter where they come from or what their status is, is now our rightful and official target.”
On Friday, Medvedev posted a post on his Telegram channel in which he initially expressed his condolences to the relatives of those killed in Russia. These words were also followed by threats and accusations. He said that “terrorists only understand terror for retaliation” and that this also applies in the case that “we find out that they are terrorists from the regime in Kiev”. He added: “They must all be found and mercilessly destroyed as terrorists. This also includes the officials of the state that committed such atrocity.”
Attack near Moscow: Fire brigade fought the flames for hours
Update from March 24th, 9:50 a.m.:
The company that owns the concert hall that burned down in the fatal attack on Friday promises to rebuild the building. “We will never forget those who fell victim to the terrorists. What was destroyed by the dirty hands (of terrorists) will be restored,” said Crocus Group. The Crocus City Hall had more than 6,000 seats. It was built in 2009 by billionaire Aras Agalarov's Crocus Group on the outskirts of Moscow. According to authorities, during the attack, gunmen in camouflage clothing fired wildly, then a fire broke out, causing the roof to collapse. Hundreds of firefighters tried to contain the flames for hours.
Attack near Moscow: Number of dead in Russia estimated at 133
Update from March 24th, 6:30 a.m.:
The number of victims after the terrorist attack on a concert hall near Moscow initially remained at 133. The state news agency Tass reported this on Sunday morning, citing the Emergencies Ministry for the Moscow region. The number of injured rose from 147 to 152, including five children. Many of the injured are said to be in critical condition.
During the night, heavy machinery cleared rubble from the site. It had been feared that more victims could be found under the rubble of the badly damaged concert hall in Krasnogorsk, northwest of Moscow. According to authorities, the clean-up and rescue work should last at least until Sunday evening.
Russia is commemorating the victims with a national day of remembrance this Sunday (March 24). The terrorist militia Islamic State had already claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday night, but Russian President Vladimir Putin saw a “Ukrainian trace” behind the attack - but without providing any evidence for it.
After attack near Moscow - two of the attackers allegedly killed
Update from March 23rd, 9:45 p.m.:
Two of the people involved in the attack in Moscow are said to have been killed. According to information from the
BBC
, one of the attackers was already killed in the concert hall. Another is said to have died in the Bryansk region.
The dead were Tajik nationals. A court is said to have asked him in advance to make a “controlled, independent departure” from Russia. The man had already exceeded his 90-day stay in 2018.
Faeser also warns of an increased risk of terrorism in Germany
Update from March 23rd, 8:50 p.m.:
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has classified the threat of terrorism in Germany as “acute”, especially after the recent attack in Moscow. She expressed her assessment to the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
that “the terrorist group Islamic State of Khorasan Province is responsible for the murderous terrorist attack near Moscow.”
The minister emphasized that the ISPK, an offshoot of the Islamic State, also represents “the greatest Islamic threat” in Germany. The ISPK is assigned to the historical region of Khorasan, which includes parts of the present-day countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
According to Faeser, the increased security measures during the Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne served to ward off possible attacks by the ISPK. She warned, “The threat of Islamist terrorism remains acute.” The Interior Minister emphasized that the Islamist scene remains in the sights of the security authorities: “The Islamist scene is the focus of the BKA, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the security authorities of the federal states.”
Faeser condemned the “cowardly and brutal terrorist attack” in Moscow and expressed her condolences to the families and relatives of the victims.