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Four key suspects were being questioned on Sunday over the largest attack on Russian soil in more than a decade as the country held a day of mourning over the assault, which killed at least 137 people and injured 180.
Flags were flown at half-mast and Russians brought flowers to the site of Friday’s attack, a vast concert hall on the capital’s outskirts that is now a burnt-out shell after a fire started by the assailants tore through the building.
Jihadist group Isis claimed responsibility shortly after the attack and shared a photograph of four assailants, as well as a graphic video filmed by one of the men during the assault.
Russian law enforcement said on Sunday that the main suspects, four gunmen caught by security services shortly after the attack, had been brought to the main headquarters of the Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigative body, for questioning.
It shared a video of at least three suspects being brought out of a white van by armed men, their hands tied and eyes bound with bandages and scarves. They were subsequently set to be transferred to Moscow’s Basmannyy court, which was expected to rule they should be detained while the investigation proceeds.
Russia’s interior ministry said the four main suspects were foreign nationals. Reports in Russian media and interrogation videos posted online suggested the men were from Tajikistan, a Central Asian country from where large numbers of people have been recruited to extremist Islamist organisations.
The FSB security service said it detained the four main suspects as they tried to flee the country.
Videos shared on social media, apparently filmed by the security services on Saturday, showed the four being apprehended in a wooded area. The Investigative Committee said the men had been caught in the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine.
The men appeared bloodied and injured in the videos, which suggested they had been brutally interrogated by Russian security services. One was apparently mutilated, according to the footage. Another was filmed being interrogated via a translator in a hospital ward after being seriously injured, seemingly losing the use of one eye. Only one of the men appeared to speak some Russian.
The Investigative Committee said it had discovered two Kalashnikov rifles, 28 magazines and more than 500 rounds of ammunition at the scene of the attack.
Russian officials have sought to direct popular anger over the attack towards Ukraine, which has strongly denied any involvement. In a brief televised speech on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made no mention of Isis or Islamist terrorism, despite the group claiming responsibility.
Kyiv’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba in a statement on social media platform X on Sunday called Putin a “pathological liar” who was “desperately attempting to link Ukraine or other western nations to the mass shooting near Moscow, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support such claims”.
Putin spoke to Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon in a call in which Rahmon condemned the attack and said the two countries would continue working together closely to fight terrorism and extremism, the Tajik government’s press service said on Sunday.
Tajikistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan, is an impoverished country where large numbers of people travel to Russia as migrant workers. Hundreds of its citizens joined Isis in Iraq and Syria in 2014-15, and Tajiks now make up a large share of Isis-Khorasan or Isis-K, the militant group’s Afghan branch, according to analysts who monitor extremist groups. The US has indicated it believes Isis-K to be responsible for Friday’s attack in Moscow.
In his address to the country, Putin pledged that Russia would find and punish everyone involved in the attack, “whomever they may be, and whoever sent them”.
“We will identify and punish everyone who stands behind the terrorists, who prepared this evil act, this attack on Russia,” he said. Some Russian propagandists and pundits began calling for the death penalty.
On Sunday, state news agencies shared a video of Putin at a church at his official residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, lighting a candle in memory of those killed in the attack.
The number injured rose to 180 on Sunday, according to the health ministry of the Moscow region, which shared lists of names of hospitalised people. The death toll, currently reported by law enforcement to be 137 people including three children, may rise further as emergency services continue to work at the site. More than 60 bodies have been identified so far.
Gunmen stormed through the building on Friday, shooting at crowds ahead of a rock concert by the band Piknik, while other victims died in the blaze after the attackers set off explosions in the hall.
The assault has shocked Russia, triggering an outpouring of grief and recalling the Islamist insurgencies that marked the first decade of Putin’s rule. The US embassy in Moscow and six other western countries’ missions had issued alerts in early March warning about attacks on public venues, including concerts.
Putin has held phone calls with the leaders of Turkey, Syria and several former Soviet Union countries since the attack.
Additional reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv
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