Russia mourns victims of deadly concert hall attack

MOSCOW: Russia lowered flags to half-mast yesterday for a day of mourning after scores of people were gunned down with automatic weapons at a rock concert outside Moscow in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades.

President Vladimir Putin declared a national day of mourning after pledging to track down and punish all those behind the attack, which left 133 people dead, including three children, and more than 150 were injured.

“I express my deep, sincere condolences to all those who lost their loved ones,” Putin said in an address to the nation on Saturday, his first public comments on the attack. “The whole country and our entire people are grieving with you.”

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, but Putin has not publicly mentioned the group in connection with the attackers, who he said had been trying to escape to Ukraine. He asserted that some on “the Ukrainian side” had prepared to spirit them across the border.

Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340km southwest of Moscow.

“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” Putin said.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border.

Ukraine has repeatedly denied any role in the attack, which Putin also blamed on “international terrorism”.

People laid flowers at Crocus City Hall, the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow where four armed men burst in on Friday just before Soviet-era rock group Picnic was to perform its hit Afraid of Nothing.

The men fired their automatic weapons in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail off bullets.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was typical of Putin and “other thugs” to seek to divert blame.

In video footage published by Russian media and Telegram channels with close ties to the Kremlin, one of the suspects said he was offered money to carry out the attack.

“I shot people,” the suspect, his hands tied and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot beneath his chin, said in poor and highly accented Russian.

When asked why, he said: “For money.” The man said he had been promised half a million roubles (RM23,684). One was shown answering questions through a Tajik translator. – Reuters