MOSCOW — Russian authorities arrested four men suspected of carrying out the attack on a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133 people, President Vladimir Putin said Saturday in an address to the nation. He claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine.
Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday's assault on the Crocus City Hall music venue in Krasnogorsk; the Islamic State group's Afghanistan affiliate claimed responsibility.
Putin did not mention IS in his speech, and Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for Russia's war in Ukraine, which recently entered its third year.
Police officers secure an area Saturday near the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow.
U.S. intelligence officials confirmed the claim by the IS affiliate.
"ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement. 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.
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Putin said authorities detained a total of 11 people in the attack, which also injured more than 100 concertgoers. He called it "a bloody, barbaric terrorist act" and said Russian authorities captured the four suspected gunmen as they were trying to escape to Ukraine through a "window" prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.
Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.
A woman places flowers Saturday by the fence next to the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow following an attack there the prior night.
Russian news reports identified the gunmen as citizens of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan.
Tajikistan's foreign ministry, which denied initial Russian media reports that mentioned several other Tajiks allegedly involved in the raid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Saturday's arrests.
Many Russian hard-liners called for a crackdown on Tajik migrants, but Putin appeared to reject the idea, saying “no force will be able to sow the poisonous seeds of discord, panic or disunity in our multi-ethnic society.”
He declared Sunday a day of mourning and said additional security measures were imposed throughout Russia.
People place flowers, toys and other items Saturday by the fence next to the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow.
The attack, the deadliest in Russia in years, is a major embarrassment for the Russian leader and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet times.
Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warnings.
The assault came two weeks after the U.S. Embassy in Moscow issued a notice urging Americans to avoid crowded places in view of "imminent" plans by extremists to target large Moscow gatherings, including concerts. Several other Western embassies repeated the warning. Putin denounced the warning as an attempt to intimidate Russians.
Firefighters work in the burned concert hall after Friday's attack on the western edge of Moscow.
Investigators combed through the charred wreckage of the hall Saturday for more victims, and authorities said the death toll could rise.
Hundreds of people stood in line in Moscow to donate blood and plasma, Russia's health ministry said.
Russian lawmakers pointed the finger at Ukraine immediately after the attack.
People line up to donate blood Saturday to help victims of the attack in Crocus City Hall, near the Blood Center of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency in Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy angrily rejected Moscow’s accusations as an attempt by Putin and his lieutenants to shift the blame to Ukraine while treating their own people as “expendables.”
“They are burning our cities — and they are trying to blame Ukraine,” he said in a statement on his messaging app channel. “They torture and rape our people — and they blame them. They drove hundreds of thousands of their terrorists here to fight us on our Ukrainian soil, and they don’t care what happens inside their own country.”
Mourners lay flowers for the victims at the site of attack in Moscow.
Images shared by Russian state media showed emergency vehicles still gathered outside the ruins of Crocus City Hall, which could hold more than 6,000 people. On Friday, crowds were at the venue for a concert by the Russian rock band Picnic.
Videos posted online showed gunmen in the venue shooting civilians at point-blank range. Russian news reports cited authorities and witnesses as saying the attackers threw explosive devices that started the fire, which eventually consumed the building and caused its roof to collapse.
Messages of outrage, shock and support for the victims and their families streamed in from around the world.
People react Saturday next to the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow.
IS, which lost much of its ground after Russia's military action in Syria, has long targeted Russia. In a statement posted by the group's Aamaq news agency, IS's Afghanistan affiliate said it attacked a large gathering of "Christians" in Krasnogorsk.
On Saturday, the group issued a new statement saying the attack was carried out by four men who used automatic rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It cast the raid as part of IS's ongoing war with countries that it says are fighting Islam.
The group has claimed several attacks in Russia's volatile Caucasus and other regions in past years.
On March 7, just hours before the U.S. Embassy warned about imminent attacks, Russia's top security agency said it thwarted an attack on a synagogue in Moscow by an IS cell and killed several of its members in the Kaluga region near the Russian capital. A few days before that, Russian authorities said six alleged IS members were killed in a shootout in Ingushetia, in Russia's Caucasus region.