Putin Declares ‘Day of Mourning’ After Concert Hall Terror Attack

Russia observed a day of mourning Sunday, two days after a deadly attack at a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed more than 137 people, including three children, and injured over 180.

Rescue teams continue to scour the scorched building for survivors as some families still agonize over the fate of their loved ones. Hundreds of people stood in line in Moscow to donate blood and plasma, Russia’s health ministry said.

The attack Friday was the deadliest on Russian soil since the 2004 Beslan school siege, when Islamist militants took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.

Four armed men walked toward the metal detectors at Crocus City Hall Friday— a 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow — firing their automatic weapons point-blank in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail of bullets, according to witnesses.

Friday’s attack has been claimed by the Islamic State terror group.

In a statement posted by its affiliate Aamaq news agency on Telegram, IS said it attacked a large gathering in Krasnogorsk on Moscow’s outskirts, killing and wounding hundreds. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.

IS posted a grainy video purportedly showing the gunmen storming into what appears to be the Crocus concert hall.

In a televised address to the nation Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his “deepest condolences” to the families of the victims and declared a National Day of Mourning after vowing to track down and punish all those behind the attack he called “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act.” He said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340 km (210 miles) 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) claimed the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border.

In his Saturday evening address Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Putin’s claim that Ukraine had been involved.

“Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else,” he said.

Ukraine had “no involvement whatsoever” in the massacre in a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 137 people, the White House said Sunday, after Putin suggested a Kyiv connection.

“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. U.S. officials have said Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate IS-Khorasan carried out the attack.

The White House said the U.S. government had shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow and issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7. Earlier this week, Putin denounced the U.S. warning as an attempt to intimidate Russians.

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

“I shot people,” the suspect said on camera, his hands tied, and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot beneath his chin.

Another suspect was shown answering questions through a Tajik translator.

In a phone call with Putin Sunday, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon condemned the Moscow concert hall attack, amid allegations the gunmen were Tajik citizens, The Moscow Times reports.

The Islamic State (IS) group is active in Tajikistan. The Central Asian nation shares a border with Afghanistan.

The Kremlin said Sunday that Putin and Rahmon have agreed to “intensify” their joint counterterrorism efforts.

Flags were lowered to half-staff in Russia Sunday, while television entertainment and advertising were suspended, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

People laid flowers at a makeshift memorial near the charred concert hall.

On March 7, just hours before the U.S. Embassy warned about imminent attacks on Russian territory, Russia’s top security agency said it had 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.

Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.