At least 40 people were killed and more than 100 injured Friday evening (March 22) in an attack by gunmen at a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, Russian security forces (FSB) said. “The preliminary toll of the terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall complex is currently 40 dead and more than 100 injured,” the FSB was quoted as saying by Russian agencies.
Shots, followed by a fire, were fired in this concert hall located in the suburbs near the Russian capital. The facts, the exact nature of which remains to be clarified, took place at Crocus City Hall, a concert hall located in the northwest of the Russian capital. “Unknown persons opened fire at Crocus City Hall. The evacuation of people is underway,” the emergency services initially informed the public agency TASS.
Russian diplomatic spokesperson Maria Zakharova denounced a “bloody terrorist attack” and a “monstrous crime”. The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, announced the cancellation of all public events. “The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case for a terrorist act in the Moscow region,” this body responsible for the main criminal investigations in the country announced on Telegram.
Building engulfed in flames
According to a journalist from the state news agency Ria Novosti, individuals in camouflage outfits burst onto the concert hall floor before opening fire and throwing “a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which caused a fire.” “The people in the room lay on the ground to protect themselves from the gunfire for 15 to 20 minutes, after which they started crawling out. Many managed to get out,” said this Ria Novosti journalist.
The emergency services, cited by the Interfax agency, reported a “group of two to five unidentified people wearing tactical uniforms and armed with automatic weapons” who “opened fire on security agents at the entrance to the concert hall” and then “started shooting at the audience.”
According to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, firefighters managed to evacuate around a hundred people who were in the basement of the concert hall. Operations are underway to “rescue people from the roof of the building using lifting equipment.”
A series of videos broadcast on Russian Telegram channels show at least three attackers enter the shopping center and open fire, leaving several victims behind. Other videos show spectators in the performance hall taking shelter before the Piknik group concert.
“Ukraine had nothing to do with these events”
The Crocus City Hall is a huge exhibition center, inside which is notably located the concert hall where the Piknik music group, a veteran of the Russian rock scene, performed on Friday evening. The center is located just outside the administrative boundaries of Moscow, heading northwest, in the city of Krasnogorsk.
This attack comes as Russia has been carrying out an assault on its Ukrainian neighbor for two years and has been the target of attacks by Russian anti-Kremlin fighters for several days in the territories bordering Ukraine. A White House spokesperson said they have “no indication at this stage that Ukraine or Ukrainians are involved.”
“Let’s be clear, Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with these events,” Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhaïlo Podoliak assured on Telegram, calling them a “terrorist act.”
Russia bereaved by terrorism
Russia has been the target of numerous attacks in the past, committed by Islamist groups but also of shootings without political motives or attributed to unbalanced people.
In 2002, Chechen fighters took 912 people hostage in the Moscow theater of Dubrovka to demand the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. The hostage-taking ended with an assault by special forces and the death of 130 people, almost all of them asphyxiated by the gas used by the military.
On March 7, the American embassy communicated in an unusual and apparently uncoordinated manner with Russian authorities about the risk of attacks in Moscow. The embassy, ??followed by its British counterpart, called in particular to “avoid large gatherings, including concerts”, over the next forty-eight hours. Recently, on March 19, Vladimir Putin again mentioned this warning, denouncing “explicit blackmail and a desire to destabilize and frighten our society.”
That same March 7, the FSB assured that it had foiled a planned attack against a Moscow synagogue, attributed to Afghan terrorists linked to the Islamic State organization. A few days earlier, in Ingushetia (North Caucasus), security forces had carried out an all-night assault on a house in the town of Karabulak, killing “six fighters”, according to the authorities.