Russia marks a national day of mourning for victims of the concert hall attack on Sunday (Apr. 0224/03/24/1240553741)
MOSCOW — Family and friends of those still missing after an attack that killed more than 130 people at a suburban Moscow concert hall waited for news of their loved ones as Russia observed a day of national mourning on Sunday.
Events at cultural institutions were canceled, flags were lowered to half-staff and television entertainment and advertising were suspended, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. A steady stream of people added to a makeshift memorial near the burnt-out concert hall, creating a huge mound of flowers.
It’s impossible to be in that situation, since many people came to the concert and some people came to relax with their families. And I want to express my condolences to all the families that were affected here and I want to pay tribute to these people,” Andrey Kondakov, one of the mourners who came to lay flowers at the memorial, told The Associated Press.
Kindergarten employee Marina Korshu Nova said that it was a tragedy that has affected the country. “It just doesn’t even make sense that small children were affected by this event.” The children were among the dead.
As rescuers continue to search the damaged building and the death toll rises as more bodies are found, some families still don’t know if relatives who went to the event targeted by gunmen on Friday are alive. Moscow’s Department of Health said Sunday it has begun identifying the bodies of those killed via DNA testing, which will need at least two weeks.
Source: Russia marks a national day of mourning for victims of the concert hall attack
The incident of the attack on a Russian concertgoer’s AK47 gunman killed 22 people and wounded 23 others in the Basmanny District Court
After Pogadaev saw the reports of gunmen opening fire on concertgoers, he rushed to the site, but couldn’t find her in the numerous ambulances or among the hundreds of people who had made their way out of the venue.
I showed the photographs to everyone I asked. No one could say anything as Pogadaev told the AP in a video message.
As the death toll mounted on Saturday, Pogodaev scoured hospitals in the Russian capital and the Moscow region, looking for information on newly admitted patients.
Russian authorities arrested four suspected attackers on Saturday along with 11 other people, who were suspected of involvement in the attack. He said that they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.
Though no court hearing has been officially announced, there was a heavy police presence around Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Sunday. Journalists were trying to get away from the court.
A video was released by Russia’s security services that shows an interrogator severing a man’s ear with a knife. Another was brought in a wheelchair, only partially conscious and with apparent trauma to his eye. A third had bruises on his face and a ripped plastic bag around his neck. A video leaked by security forces to social media appeared to show an agent electrocuting another suspect’s genitalia.
Putin didn’t mention IS in his speech to the nation, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia’s fight in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.
“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. The National Security Council spokeswoman said there was no Ukrainian involvement.
The U.S. shared information with Russia in early March about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow, and issued a public warning to Americans in Russia, Watson said.
The Russian leader was embarrassed by the raid and it happened just days after he secured his grip on the country for six more years.
The attack on the US embassy in Moscow was questioned by some commentators on Russian social media, who wondered how the authorities could have failed to prevent it.
The U.S.Condemned the attack, and said that the Islamic State group needs to be defeated everywhere.
IS, which fought against Russia during its intervention in the Syrian civil war, has long targeted Russia. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, the IS Afghanistan affiliate stated that it had attacked a large group of Christians in Krasnogorsk.
A new statement issued by the group on Aamaq claimed the attack was carried out by four men with firebombs and automatic rifles. It said the attack was part of the Islamic State group’s war against Islam, and that some concertgoers were stabbed to death.
In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.
The assault came less than a week after President Putin claimed a convincing victory in a pro-forma vote, which the Kremlin had presented as an endorsement of Putin’s war inUkraine and his promised defense of the Russian homeland.
With the suspects now charged, a trial could get underway as soon as late May. If the men are convicted, they could face life in prison. Russia currently has a moratorium on the death penalty — although the carnage at Crocus City has raised calls by leading political figures to change course.
Ukrainian officials have vehemently denied involvement — calling the accusations a Kremlin attempt to marshal Russian public support for an increasingly unpopular war.
Maria Zakharova suggested that the U.S. was trying to steer attention away from Ukraine.
Moscow concert hall attack and what’s next in the case: Putin’s warnings on the attack on Crocus City Hall are false and misleading
“If I do not help, then I will lose my life and that of many people,” he said in an interview with Russian media. It was terrifying.
Video from the night of the attack shows a large crowd of people going through the hallways of the concert venue to safety.
Yet three days before the assault on Crocus City Hall, Putin dismissed the American claims as fearmongering. The Russian leader told the chiefs of Russia’s Federal Security Service that the warnings were “provocative” and that they were meant to intimidate and destabilizing our society.
Putin has yet to visit the site of the attack and the Kremlin indicated on Monday he had no plans to. Over the weekend the government released a video showing Putin lighting a candle at his residence outside Moscow to honor victims at a private Orthodox church.
Russian Orthodox priests, including Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, a key Kremlin ally, held vigils and prayers for the victims. There was an impromptu memorial at the site of the massacre which mushroomed into a mountain of flowers, candles and other tributes on Sunday evening. A tribute to the victims of the crane crash was broadcasted on state media and shared online, showing images of flying cranes on the wall of the concert hall with stirring music.
National mourning day occurred on Sunday, with tribute events taking place in cities across the country. There was a billboard campaign that showed a candle. In Moscow and other major cities, long lines of people were waiting to donate blood.
The Tajikistan attackers, 49 accused of committing acts of terror in a closed Moscow court hearing, and three other terrorists have been killed
Four suspects — all reportedly from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic — were charged with committing acts of terror in a closed Moscow court hearing late Sunday night. A court statement said the men — identified as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19 — all pled guilty to participating in the attack and shooting innocent civilians.
Throughout the weekend, authorities marked a grim rise in the death count— as recovery teams discovered additional bodies and other victims succumbed to injuries.
Russia is still reeling from an attack by terrorists who killed at least 77 people in a concert hall outside Moscow, which is the worst terrorist attack in the country in over a decade.