Unanswered questions

A year after the deadly terror attack on a Moscow concert venue, the authorities are yet to fill in the gaps

A year ago today, multiple gunmen entered Crocus City Hall, an entertainment complex in suburban Moscow, and opened fire at concert goers before setting fire to the building in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Russian history.

In total, 145 people were killed and another 550 were injured in the shooting and the ensuing inferno that engulfed the venue’s upper floor as the shooting continued, with several explosions reported before the roof eventually collapsed.

However, a full year later, the authorities are yet to address many important questions — from Moscow’s decision to ignore Western intelligence warnings that were shared weeks before the attack took place, to the full hour it took for the security forces to arrive on the scene after the shooting began.

Unheeded warnings

The American Embassy in Moscow issued an alert to US citizens in the city on 7 March, over two weeks ahead of the attack, in which it warned that extremists were planning an attack on a large crowd of people in Moscow in the following 48 hours. The UK, Germany, Canada, Latvia, Sweden, Czechia and South Korea all issued similar warnings via their embassies.

That same day, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported neutralising terrorists from a Russian Islamic State cell, and on 19 March, just four days before the attack, Vladimir Putin dismissed the embassy warnings as “blatant blackmail” by the West aimed at intimidating Muscovites.

While the authorities largely kept quiet about the Western warnings after the attack had taken place, a TASS report published the following day cited a source in the secret services who confirmed that intelligence about an impending terror attack had indeed been received, “but without specific detail”.

On 25 March, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to confirm whether the US had passed on any intelligence concerning the impending terror attacks when asked by TASS, stressing that Russia was investigating the attack without outside help.

Delayed response

According to independent media outlet IStories, the first call about the attack was placed at 8:01pm and the first mention in the press appeared at around 8:15pm. However, the first Russian National Guard unit did not arrive at the venue until 9:06pm, over an hour after that first call.

As a result, the storming of the building only began at around 9:30pm, about an hour after the culprits had already fled the scene, during which rescue workers waited for instructions from the security forces so they could begin evacuating and tending to the wounded, while people remained trapped inside the building.

A Novaya Europe source in the FSB familiar with the special forces said that the reason it took so long was the chaotic atmosphere, as the security forces “couldn’t figure out who to alert” about the emergency, and ultimately “wasted time”.

IStories demonstrated that even taking traffic into account, the National Guard should have reached Crocus from its nearest base in under 18 minutes, while the first two special forces units should have taken no longer than 15 and 35 minutes to reach the scene.

A Novaya Gazeta Europe source in the FSB familiar with the special forces said that the reason it took so long was the chaotic atmosphere, as the security forces “couldn’t figure out who to alert” about the emergency, and ultimately “wasted time” preparing and stuck in traffic jams. Another problem was that there was no helicopter available to transport the national guardsmen to the scene rapidly, he added.

The National Guard could have got there on foot in 15 minutes but the “thought didn’t even occur to them”, the source said, noting that despite the outrageously slow response, nobody was dismissed or demoted over the delayed reaction within the special forces.

The arrests

The day after the terror attack, FSB Director Alexander Botnikov informed Vladimir Putin that 11 people had been arrested, which included four of the suspected perpetrators, all of whom — Dalerdzhon Mirzoev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov — were remanded in custody on 24 March. All four appeared in court showing significant signs of torture.

The day after the attack, the BBC, citing a source familiar with the case, reported that two of the alleged terrorists had been killed: one during a chase in the western Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine and Belarus, and the second in the concert hall during the attack. Though this claim has never been officially confirmed, nor have the security forces denied it.

Isroil Islomov and his two sons, Dilovar and Aminchon, were remanded in custody on 25 March on suspicion of assisting the perpetrators of the attack. According to investigators, the Islomovs provided the suspected terrorists with the white Renault getaway vehicle in which they were stopped in the Bryansk region within hours of the attack.

“At first, they picked up everyone who had even the remotest connection to the case. In cases such as these, anyone who has had any interaction with the alleged terrorists or had financial dealings with them becomes an accomplice.”

However, people who knew the Islomov brothers who spoke to Novaya Europe within days of the attack cast doubt on the family’s prior knowledge of the incident, saying that they had simply sold the car to Dilovar’s wife’s brother a week earlier, but had known nothing of the terror plot. Indeed, one of the brothers said that he had contacted the police after he saw his old car in footage of the men being detained that was shown on TV.

Alisher Kasimov, the landlord of the apartment where the perpetrators lived, was also detained, but has said in court that while he did indeed rent out the apartment in question online, he had not known the tenants personally.

Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, announced in January that in total 27 suspects had been arrested by investigators. A Novaya Europe source within the FSB said of the sweeping detentions and arrests that it was a case of “the greater the number of accomplices, the better”.

“At first, they picked up everyone who had even the remotest connection to the case. In cases such as these, anyone who has had any interaction with the alleged terrorists or had financial dealings with them becomes an accomplice,” he added.

According to the source, the “presumption of innocence” does not apply in terror cases, and it can be difficult to defend detainees. “You can’t prove that you didn’t know that a terrorist attack was being prepared.”

The ‘Ukrainian connection’

Immediately after the attack, the Russian authorities claimed that the perpetrators had attempted to flee to Ukraine, with Bortnikov even saying that the terrorists “wanted to be met as heroes in Ukraine”. However, this was refuted by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who publicly cast doubt on the “Ukrainian connection” and suggested that the Islamists might actually have been heading for Belarus.

When a Russian Islamic State cell claimed responsibility for the attack, the country’s propagandists were quick to pour scorn on the idea with RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan stating categorically that the Islamic State claim was false, as the Kremlin propagandists continued to push the narrative that Kyiv had orchestrated the atrocity.

On the evening of the attack, sources told business daily Kommersant that the Russian Volunteer Corps was to blame, saying the terrorists were “young Slavs, above average height … and may have used false beards”. Russian state media even published a deep fake video of Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, confirming Ukrainian involvement in the attack.

However, in the weeks following the attacks, Russian state media and officials gradually stopped mentioning the alleged Ukrainian connection, although some media continued reporting the attackers’ ties to Ukraine for lack of a better theory. One such example was the Investigative Committee claiming to have found photos of the Ukrainian flag on phones belonging to the suspects.

However, within a few months, such statements had ceased altogether, and the Russian authorities gave up on using the attack as a propaganda tool, preferring not to raise this topic in the media unnecessarily at all.