Live updates: Gunmen kill at least 40 people at Moscow concert hall, state media reports
Several gunmen opened fire at a popular concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow on Friday, killing at least 40 people and wounding more than 100. saidstate news agencies said.
More than a third of the building, which houses one of Moscow’s largest and most popular concert halls, was on fire on Friday evening, according to Tass, as emergency services tried to rescue people from the roof.
Three helicopters were sent to the scene, the service said. An explosion was reported at 9:32 PM local time and RIA Novosti reported that the fire had increased. The roof near the stage collapsed around 10 p.m. local time, RIA Novosti reported.
There was no word on who might be responsible for the attack, but state media reported there were up to five perpetrators. The Russian Investigative Committee, the country’s equivalent of the FBI, said it had opened a criminal case for a terrorist act and sent its investigators to the scene.
According to emergency services, more than a hundred people have already been evacuated from the building.
Videos verified by The New York Times show several people with weapons entering Crocus City Hall, a shopping center and concert venue in Krasnogorsk, a northwestern suburb of Moscow. The videos show people lying injured on the ground.
In videos recorded inside the concert hall, spectators waiting for a performance by veteran rock band Piknik can be heard screaming, and there are repeated gunshots from outside the venue. Other videos, filmed from a highway outside the building, show parts of it on fire and producing heavy smoke.
“At least three people in camouflage stormed into the ground floor of the Crocus town hall and opened fire with automatic weapons,” a correspondent from another state news agency, RIA Novosti, reported from the scene. “There are definitely injured people.”
RIA Novosti said a special police unit was working in the building in addition to firefighters. Images posted to social media from the scene showed bodies lying on the ground outside the location.
Moscow Mayor Sergei S. Sobyanin said that several people had been killed and called it a ‘terrible tragedy’. He said all major events planned for the weekend would be cancelled. Shopping centers were also evacuated in St. Petersburg, more than 400 miles from Moscow, according to independent outlet Bumaga.
Shootings are rare in Russia, a country where the state strictly regulates the ownership of firearms. One of the deadliest occurred in 2022, when a gunman killed 18 people and injured 23 others at a school in the city of Izhevsk.
On March 7, the US embassy in Moscow issued a decision security alarm warned that its staff was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts.” The statement warned American citizens that an attack could occur within the next 48 hours.
Pro-Kremlin voices seized on the US embassy’s warning to portray America as trying to scare the Russians. On March 19, President Vladimir V. Putin called the statement “clear blackmail” with “the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.”
The attack came on the same day that 165 missiles and drones attacked Ukraine, drawing US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink. said was “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy network since the start of the Russian war.”
But there was no immediate indication of any Ukrainian involvement in the attack in Moscow, or of the identity of the attackers.
John Kirby, the White House national security communications adviser, said there was “no indication at this time that Ukraine, or Ukrainians, were involved in the shooting.” In comments to reporters, he said: “I would like to rid you of any connection with Ukraine at this early hour.”