❗️WATCH: Vladimir Putin’s speech to the nation in connection to the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🚀 A Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft launched to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

Video by a Sputnik correspondent

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️The death toll from the terrorist attack increased to 133 during the clearing of rubble in the Crocus City Hall. Searches continue, the Investigative Committee of Russia reported.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Scott Ritter: Evidence points to Ukraine and the CIA in Moscow terror attack

“If this was something planned by Ukraine, then it means it was something planned by Ukraine under the direction of the CIA to carry out an American policy objective, which seeks the strategic defeat of Russia,” the former US Marines intelligence officer said in a video comment for Sputnik.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukraine almost certainly ‘ordered’ Moscow concert hall terror attack — FSB veteran

The fact that the suspects were detained in the Bryansk region, with the evacuation route lying through the Russian-Ukrainian border, shows their links to Kiev, Andrey Popov, a reserve FSB colonel and member of the Association of Veterans of the Alfa anti-terror group, told Sputnik.

“It would be unrealistic for the terrorists to cross the Ukrainian border without contacts with the country’s special services or the Ukrainian side,” Popov said.

In other words, the version about ISIS’* involvement in the Crocus City Hall attack – claimed by the US-led West - holds no water. All these citizens with Tajik passports were moving towards Ukraine, and this indicates that it was the Kiev regime who ordered this atrocity,” the reserve FSB colonel added, referring to the attack.

He suggested that the US could “directly or indirectly organize this deadly shooting rampage and that Washington could “definitely finance it, because terrorism in the form of Ukraine has no other sources of funding except from the US and the UK.”

*ISIS (ISIL/Daesh/Islamic State/IS), a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

During interrogation, the third suspect in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack introduced himself as Rajab Alizadeh and admitted that he disposed of his weapon on the way to the Bryansk region along with his accomplices.

The suspect noticeably struggled to speak and comprehend Russian.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Even if ISIS involved in Moscow terrorist attack, serious questions remain about Ukrainian and US role — Iranian expert

The United States’ insistence that Ukraine had nothing to do with the March 22 terrorist attack in Moscow appears “very strange,” especially considering the fact that the US started pushing this narrative before any “real details” of the attack became known, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a political analyst and professor at Tehran University, told Sputnik.

He also regarded as strange the fact that the US “was able to give such a detailed travel advisory or warning about a terror attack naming concerts and giving specifics about an attack in Moscow and large gatherings and all that.”

“So, they have all these specific details, but they were unable to give anything specific to the Russians. This all makes one think that something is very wrong,” Marandi remarked.

Referring to claims that terrorist organization ISIS* may be responsible for the attack, Marandi argued that such reports do not “rule out” the possibility of “cooperation between Ukraine and ISIS or the potential role of the United States.”

“ISIS has cooperated with NATO countries, it has cooperated with Israel, and it has cooperated with other American allies in Syria for years. And Ukraine is also deeply dependent on NATO countries,” he said.

The analyst also pointed out that ISIS has “always been focused” on attacking enemies of the United States whereas attacks by this terrorist organization on NATO countries or countries allied with the West are “very rare.”

*ISIS (ISIL/Islamic State/IS), a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚡️Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs denied rumors that those detained on suspicion of committing a terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall were Russian citizens: all of them are foreigners

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

United Russia's parliamentary faction head, Vladimir Vasiliev, on the death penalty for the Crocus City Hall terrorists: A decision will be made that will meet society’s expectations.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The terrorists ran down an eight-year-old boy in their car when leaving Crocus City Hall near Moscow

Igor, the father of the injured child Ilya, said that they went to the concert with the whole family - he, his wife, 11-year-old daughter and son.

“When the shooting started, we managed to quickly get out of the hall. At first they wanted to hide in the toilet, but at the last second we changed our minds. Now we understand that this was the right decision. I carefully led the family out of the building, we ran into the street...

"And just as the thought appeared in my head that we were safe, we saw that same Renault car rushing towards us at full speed and deliberately knocking down our son and running into him.

"It [the car] hit my daughter and me tangentially and we suffered minor bruises. My son suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken collarbone and a broken hip. Doctors are not making any predictions yet. We just ask everyone to keep him in your prayers."

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Vladimir Putin and expressed his condolences over the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, the Turkish Presidential Office reported.

In the conversation, he told the Russian president that this terrorist attack demonstrated the need for a speedy resolution of crises in the region.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

A day of mourning has also been declared tomorrow in the Republic of Srpska as a sign of solidarity with Russia, President of the Republic Milorad Dodik stated.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

“The Preacher’s Assistant” and “Abdullo Taxi”: What is known about the Crocus City Hall terrorists?

▪️ They all reportedly speak Russian extremely poorly (or pretend to speak poorly) and one communicates in Tajik through an interpreter

▪️ The terrorist attack was carried out “for money”. One person “without a name or surname” who was contacted via Telegram, calling himself “an assistant to the preacher”, failed to state the exact amount, but first said that he was promised half a million rubles, then “somewhere [around a] million"

▪️ The name of the "preacher" is not named but one of the terrorists admitted that he listened to his “lessons, sermons"

▪️ Turkiye is mentioned, from where one of the terrorists returned 2 and a half weeks ago. Whether he met with the “preacher” or his people there is unclear

▪️ The “assistant preacher” also provided the coordinates of the location of the terrorist attack himself, while the organizers provided them with weapons - Kalashnikov assault rifles

▪️ The terrorists lived together in a hostel in the north of Moscow, they hardly knew each other: at least two of the four actors met only “10-12 days ago”

▪️ The car they drove to Crocus City Hall and then tried to escape in was bought through a family line, “they wanted to work as a taxi.” During the escape to the border, weapons were thrown away

A coherent picture does not emerge from the interrogation fragments. It is not entirely clear how are these people exactly connected, what motives they were guided by in organizing one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in the history of Russia.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

‘They started shooting people without warning, point blank’ – firsthand account of the Moscow terrorist attack

Nikolay Krutov, one of the survivors of the March 22 terrorist attack in Moscow, told Sputnik that the ordeal started around 7:55 p.m. (local time).

According to Krutov, he was on the balcony at the concert venue, waiting for the show to start, when he heard loud bangs, “which sounded like firecrackers”, coming from somewhere in the hall outside.

The terrorists entered the venue through a first floor door on the right, Krutov said, adding that he saw three men dressed in “yellow, sand-color light cammies.”

“They stormed inside and started shooting people without warning: no shots in the air or shouting slogans beforehand. No, they were firing deliberately, point blank,” the eyewitness recalled. “And they were throwing around some kind of incendiary pellets or grenades because the first floor seats immediately caught fire.”

Nikolay also recalled that the security personnel at the venue did not desert their posts when panic began and actively helped people to evacuate.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

The Moscow Region Ministry of Health published new data on the victims of the terrorist attack.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

In the Moscow region, donors donated almost a ton of blood - 2,712 people came to donor centers today, the Moscow region's Ministry of Health reported.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Crocus City Hall now.

The video was published by Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇸🇾🇷🇺 Syrian President Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone and agreed to intensify contacts in the field of anti-terrorism. The Syrian president condemned the attack on Crocus City Hall and wished fortitude to the relatives of the victims and a speedy recovery to the injured.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Latvian police prohibit Riga residents from bringing flowers to the Russian Embassy. A spontaneous memorial was organized opposite, the diplomatic mission reported.

Latvian authorities have not yet condemned the terrorist attack in the Moscow region, suggesting that Riga is aware of who organized it and approves of it, the Russian Embassy claimed.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt