The Russian Investigative Committee said it was investigating whether Ukrainian special services were involved in organizing and financing the attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall. The committee stated that the terrorists, after committing the massacre, intended to get to Kiev, "to receive the reward that had been promised to them."
Nine people accused of having contacts with the perpetrators of the Crocus City Hall massacre in Moscow and with ISIS have meanwhile been arrested in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. The Russian agency Ria Novosti writes this, citing sources from the Tajik security services.
The Basmanny District Court in Moscow has turned the detention of a ninth person into arrest in the investigation into the March 22 attack on the Crocus City Hall. This was reported by the Ria Novosti agency, specifying that the suspect, Nazrimad Lutfulloi, 24 years old, originally from
Tajikistan, was stopped the day after the massacre by the police near the concert hall because he had thrown a fit at the officers' request to show documents. For this reason another judge had decreed his arrest for 15 days on charges of hooliganism.
Now the Basmanny Court, which is leading the investigation into the massacre, has accused him of having participated in the financing of terrorists and has issued
an arrest order valid until May 22. According to Lutfulloi's lawyer, Margarita Khoreva, his client partially admitted his guilt.
144 people died in the attack, including a secret service colonel
One of the people injured in the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall died in hospital and the deaths in the attack have therefore risen to 144: this was declared by Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, quoted by the Interfax agency. According to the minister, there are 69 people
still in hospital, while 98 have been discharged. Among those who are still hospitalized - Murashko always states -
one person is in "very serious" conditions, 16 in "serious" conditions, while 19 should be discharged in the next few days as their conditions improve.
Among those killed in the attack was a colonel of the Russian military intelligence service involved in the conflict in Ukraine, who had gone to the concert with his wife and son while on leave from the front. The newspaper Rbk wrote it today.
The colonel, Timur Myasnikov, was hit by three bullets after managing to push his wife and son to safety, said Arthur Malivanchuk, president of the Samara city officers' organization. The man died after a few days of hospitalization and his funeral is scheduled for today. His name also appears in the list of injured people hospitalized after the attack, published by the health authorities of the Moscow region.
The news of the death was also given in the Telegram channel of graduates of the Suvorov military school in Kazan, where Myasnikov had studied.
The colonel was part of the Third Special Forces Brigade, which is part of the Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff, i.e. military intelligence, previously called GRU. According to the latest toll provided by the authorities,
143 people were killed and over 180 injured in the attack. Of these, 74 are still hospitalized.
'There was support from the intelligence of a foreign country'
According to Turkey, the attack claimed by ISIS against the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, where at least 144 people died, would not have been possible without the support of foreign secret services. This was stated by Omer Celik, spokesman for the Turkish ruling party AKP. "This cannot happen without the support of some country's intelligence. The truth is that ISIS is not capable of carrying out such an organization on its own. Such actions have a sponsor," Celik said in a statement. interview with the private Turkish broadcaster NTV, expressing closeness to the Russian people for the attack.
Kiev reports, fake photos of Ukrainian passports online
Fake Ukrainian passports, recreated from real photos, of the Tajik terrorists who carried out the Crocus massacre, with the aim of substantiating the thesis of the Moscow leaders on the involvement of Kiev and the United States in the attack on Moscow, are circulating online, reports the Ukrainian agency Ukrinform.
“In an attempt to find a 'Ukrainian lead', (Russian) propagandists immediately started creating 'fakes'. According to the false story they are now spreading on social platform X, the alleged (Tajikistan) perpetrators of the attack "terrorist in Moscow were identified as Ukrainian citizens, who were recruited by the state using American taxpayers' money. Propagandists spread photos of four Ukrainian passports as alleged evidence", writes Ukrinform. Of the four passport photos, two are clearly visible and two are not readable because of low quality.
According to the complaint, the fakes were made on social media using real photographs of Ukrainian passports found on the Internet. For example, the one attributed to Tajik Tsiezar Yulii-Halarirohailalirozr Illich, according to Ukrinform, belonged to a Ukrainian citizen who was arrested for committing a crime in 2020.
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