Closing summary
Russia is observing a nationwide day of mourning for the worst terror attack on the country’s soil in two decades. The official number of those left injured rose to 154 and Russian authorities raised the death toll to 137 people, including three children, up from an earlier estimate of 133, the Investigation Committee said. It also said 62 bodies have been identified. Hundreds of people brought flowers and other tributes to the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, as local emergency workers continued to search for anyone who may have been left wounded or dead inside the severely damaged entertainment complex.
The suspects in the Crocus City Hall shooting have reportedly been brought to the Investigation Committee’s headquarters in Moscow.
The UK’s chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, condemned the Kremlin after it appeared to seek to link Ukraine to the attack, which the Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for. “We have very little confidence in anything the Russian government says. We know that they are creating a smokescreen of propaganda to defend an utterly evil invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
The White House said that Ukraine had “no involvement whatsoever” in the concert hall massacre. “Isis bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” White House national security council spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, said.
Russia launched its third massive missile attack on Ukraine in the past four days, and the second to target the capital of Kyiv, with Poland’s military saying that one of the missiles launched at western Ukraine briefly entered its airspace on Sunday. The operation command of Poland, a Nato member, said in a statement that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23 am (0323GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns in western Ukraine. The object entered near the Polish town of Oserdów and stayed there for 39 seconds, the statement said.
The Polish foreign ministry said it would “demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection with another violation of the country’s airspace”. The ministry intends to summon the Russian ambassador over the airspace violation, deputy foreign minister Andrzej Szejna told private broadcaster Polsat News.
Poland’s defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, told reporters that the Russian missile would have been shot down had there been any indication that it was heading towards a target in Poland. Polish and Nato F-16s were activated as part of the strategic response.
Ukraine sharply increased imports of electricity and halted exports on Sunday after a significant wave of missile and drone attacks on the country’s energy system. “For the current day, electricity imports are forecast at 14,900 megawatt hour (Mwh). No exports are expected,” Ukraine’s energy ministry said in a statement.
The Ukrainian military said that it struck two large Russian landing ships and a communications centre used by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet during overnight strikes on the annexed Crimean peninsula. “The defence forces of Ukraine successfully hit the Azov and Yamal large landing ships, a communications centre and also several infrastructure facilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Crimea,” Ukraine’s military said.
This blog is closing now but you can read all our Ukraine coverage here.
Updated
Nato F-16s activated after Russian missile 'violated Poland's airspace'
As we reported earlier, the armed forces operational command of Poland, a Nato member, said there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23am (0323 GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns in western Ukraine.
Poland’s defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, has told reporters that the Russian missile would have been shot down had there been any indication that it was heading towards a target in Poland.
He said that Polish authorities monitored the attack on Ukraine and was in contact with Ukrainian counterparts, the Associated Press reports. Polish and Nato F-16s were activated as part of the strategic response.
“As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the Polish airspace,” he said.
The dynamics at play in Friday’s attack, with most of the perpetrators apparently radicalised citizens of Tajikistan, are different to the terror attacks in the early part of Putin’s rule, when attackers tended to be from the North Caucasus.
Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian security services, said: “Central Asian Islamic terrorism remains a real problem for the FSB. The FSB has a lot of experience dealing with extremists in the Caucasus, they have spent huge resources on that, but central Asia is more of a blind spot.”
Predictably, in the aftermath of the attack, rumours and wild theories abounded about who might “really” have been responsible, even as Islamic State took responsibility for the bloodshed.
You can read the full analysis of the state of Russia’s security apparatus by my colleagues, Shaun Walker, Pjotr Sauer and Andrew Roth, here:
White House: Ukraine had 'no involvement whatsoever' in concert hall massacre
Ukraine had “no involvement whatsoever” in the massacre in a Moscow concert hall that killed at least 137 people, the White House said.
“Isis bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” White House national security council spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group, which has claimed responsibility for the attack.
There was “no” evidence that Ukraine was involved, the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday.
“Isis-K is actually, by all accounts, responsible for what happened,” she said.
The “K” refers to Khorasan, with the attack being claimed by IS’s branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A Russian missile strike hit a Ukrainian underground gas storage site, but it would not affect the supply of natural gas to Ukrainian consumers, Ukrainian state-run energy firm Naftogaz said.
“All nominations of customers for storage and capacity booking services continue to be fulfilled in full,” Naftogaz’s CEO, Oleksiy Chernyshov, said in a statement.
It comes after officials said Russia launched a missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the region of Lviv early on Sunday.
Updated
Death toll in Russian concert hall shooting rises to 137 - officials
Russian authorities have raised the death toll from Friday’s concert mass shooting to 137 people, including three children, up from an earlier estimate of 133, the Investigation Committee has said. It also said 62 bodies have been identified.
The suspects in the Crocus City Hall shooting have been brought to the Investigation Committee’s headquarters in Moscow, Russian state news agency RIA reported.
Russia’s Investigative Committee also said on Sunday that guns and rounds of ammunition had been found both there and in a car that was used by the suspected gunmen to flee the scene.
The agency posted a video of the four suspects being dragged into its headquarters in Moscow. There was no statement on the other seven suspects arrested in connection with the attack. Officials have not named the shooters, but said they were all foreign nationals.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday’s massacre, but there has since been indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link despite Kyiv’s insistence Ukraine had no involvement in the attack.
Updated
Meduza, an independent Russian-language website, has reported that Russian state-funded and pro-government media had been instructed by the Putin administration to emphasise possible “traces” of Ukrainian involvement in the deadly concert hall attack, according to two state media employees.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, did not name the Islamic State terror group – which claimed responsibility for the massacre – during his public statements on the attack, while directly accusing the “Ukrainian side” of involvement. Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack.
More than 5,000 people have donated blood to those injured in the attack at the Crocus City concert hall that killed at least 133 people and wounded over 150 others, officials said, with many reportedly standing in long queues outside clinics.
Updated
Family and friends of those still missing after the attack on the Crocus City concert hall outside Moscow that killed over 130 people are still waiting for news of their loved ones amid Russia’s day of national mourning on Sunday, as the Associated Press reports.
Events at cultural institutions were canceled, flags were lowered, and TV entertainment and ads were suspended, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. A steady stream of people brought flowers to a makeshift memorial near the burnt-out concert hall.
“People came to a concert, some people came to relax with their families, and any one of us could have been in that situation. And I want to express my condolences to all the families that were affected here and I want to pay tribute to these people,” Andrey Kondakov, one of the mourners who came to lay flowers at the memorial said.
“It is a tragedy that has affected our entire country,” said kindergarten employee Marina Korshunova. “It just doesn’t even make sense that small children were affected by this event.” Three children were among the dead.
Updated
Russia says it has scrambled one of its Mig-31 fighter jets in response to what it says is an approach by two US bombers over the Barents Sea, according to a report by the Russian state broadcaster RIA picked up by Reuters.
The US bombers turned away from the Russian border after the approach of the MiG-31, the Russian defence ministry said.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
Russia is observing a nationwide day of mourning for the worst terror attack on the country’s soil in two decades, as the official number of those left injured rose to 154. Russian authorities have said they expect the death toll to rise with at least one dozen victims still in critical condition. Hundreds of people brought flowers and other tributes to the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, as local emergency workers say they are still continuing to search for anyone who may be left wounded or dead inside the severely damaged entertainment complex.
The UK’s chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, condemned the Kremlin after it appeared to seek to link Ukraine to the attack, which the Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for. “We have very little confidence in anything the Russian government says. We know that they are creating a smokescreen of propaganda to defend an utterly evil invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
Russia launched its third massive missile attack on Ukraine in the past four days, and the second to target the capital of Kyiv, with Poland’s military saying that one of the missiles launched at western Ukraine briefly entered its airspace on Sunday. The operation command of Poland, a Nato member, said in a statement that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23 am (0323GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns in western Ukraine. The object entered near the Polish town of Oserdów and stayed there for 39 seconds, the statement said.
The Polish foreign ministry said it would “demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection with another violation of the country’s airspace”. The ministry intends to summon the Russian ambassador over the airspace violation, deputy foreign minister Andrzej Szejna told private broadcaster Polsat News.
Ukraine sharply increased imports of electricity and halted exports on Sunday after a significant wave of missile and drone attacks on the country’s energy system. “For the current day, electricity imports are forecast at 14,900 megawatt hour (Mwh). No exports are expected,” Ukraine’s energy ministry said in a statement.
The Ukrainian military said that it struck two large Russian landing ships and a communications centre used by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet during overnight strikes on the annexed Crimean peninsula. “The defence forces of Ukraine successfully hit the Azov and Yamal large landing ships, a communications centre and also several infrastructure facilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Crimea,” Ukraine’s military said.
Updated
Islamic State has released new videos of the attack on the Crocus City concert hall outside Moscow that left 133 people dead, corroborating the terror group’s claim to have masterminded the slaughter even as Russia has sought to place the blame on Ukraine, which Kyiv denies.
The videos, which were published by IS’s news agency Amaq, showed the gunmen filming themselves as they hunted concertgoers through the lobby of the Crocus City Hall and fired at them from pointblank range, killing scores of people.
At one point, one of the gunmen tells another to “kill them and have no mercy”.
You can read the full story by the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, here:
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has disregarded the US intelligence reports saying that the Islamic State group was behind the Moscow concert hall attack.
“I wish they could have solved the assassination of their own President Kennedy so quickly,” she wrote on Telegram. “But no, for more than 60 years they have not been able to find out who killed him after all. Or maybe that was Isis too?
“Until the investigation into the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall is completed, any phrase from Washington exonerating Kyiv should be considered as evidence,” she said.
“After all, the financing of terrorist activities of the Kyiv organised criminal group by the American liberal democrats and participation in the corrupt schemes of the Biden family have been going on for many years.”
Kyiv has vociferously denied any links to the attack and has indicated it believes Moscow is preparing a pretext to escalate the conflict.
Ukraine ramps up electricity imports after series of attacks on energy system
Ukraine sharply increased imports of electricity and halted exports on Sunday after a significant wave of missile and drone attacks on the country’s energy system.
“For the current day, electricity imports are forecast at 14,900 megawatt hour (Mwh). No exports are expected,” Ukraine’s energy ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine imported 3,300 Mwh a day before the missile and drone attacks on Friday, with exports of 2,148 Mwh.
Generating and transmission facilities were attacked by Russia on Friday, causing significant blackouts in many regions which left more than a million Ukrainians without power. Energy facilities in three Ukrainian regions were also attacked this morning.
The ministry said Russians had attempted to hit a critical energy infrastructure facility in the Lviv region.
“Equipment caught fire and the facility was de-energised. There were no casualties. The consequences are being assessed,” the ministry said.
It said that as a result power lines in the Kyiv region were damaged and 1,400 households in two settlements had lost power.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, has responded to claims that the Ukrainian military had hit two large Russian landing ships in attacks on the annexed Crimean peninsula on Sunday morning (see post at 08.53 for more details).
He wrote on Telegram that transport infrastructure including passenger boats was partially damaged.
“Of the six boats, five had their windows broken … During the day, the windows of the damaged boats will be replaced and as they are restored they will be brought back online,” he said.
Razvozhayev also said that three passenger buses, 13 school buses and one trolley bus were among the damaged vehicles during the overnight attacks.
Pope Francis has condemned the shooting attack at the concert hall near Moscow as a “vile” act that offends God.
“I assure my prayers for the victims of the vile terrorist attack carried out in Moscow, may the Lord receive them in his peace, comfort their families and convert the hearts of those who … carry out these inhuman actions that offend God,” the pope said in St. Peter’s Square after the Palm Sunday mass.
UK chancellor: Kremlin creating 'smokescreen of propaganda' to 'defend Ukraine invasion'
The UK’s chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has said the UK had “very little confidence” in Russia’s statements on the Moscow concert hall attack, accusing it of creating a “smokescreen of propaganda” to defend its assault on Ukraine.
At least 133 people were killed by armed gunmen at the Crocus City Hall in a suburb on the northern edge of Moscow on Friday, with the Islamic State (IS) group claiming responsibility for the attack.
Russian authorities have not yet blamed the group, but Vladimir Putin has said the attackers were apprehended while “travelling towards Ukraine where, according to preliminary information, they had a window to cross the border”.
Russia’s FSB Security Service said earlier that the assailants had been “in contact” with people in Ukraine as they tried to flee the country. Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack.
Hunt told Sky News on Sunday:
I think we have very little confidence in anything the Russian government says.
We know that they are creating a smokescreen of propaganda to defend an utterly evil invasion of Ukraine.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a tragedy when innocent people lose their lives, when you have horrible bombings.
But I take what the Russian government says with an enormous pinch of salt, I am afraid, after what we have seen from them over the last few years.
Hunt went on to warn that the UK and other European countries should “absolutely” be concerned about the re-emergence of IS on the world stage.
“We are very lucky in this country that we have incredibly impressive intelligence agencies who have been successful … in foiling a lot of terrorist threats over recent years, but we have to remain vigilant,” he told Sky News.
“If it is Islamic State, they’re utterly indiscriminate in what they do, they’re prepared to murder in the most horrific way.”
Updated
A makeshift memorial has been set up outside the Crocus concert hall where people have been lighting candles, laying flowers and paying their respects to the victims of the shooting that has claimed the lives of at least 133 people.
The Associated Press has spoken to Igor Pogadaev, who is desperately seeking any details of his wife’s whereabouts after she went to the Crocus City Hall concert on Friday and hasn’t been heard from since.
Pogadaev said he hasn’t seen a message from Yana Pogadaeva since she sent her husband two photos from the Crocus City Hall music venue just outside Moscow.
After Igor saw the reports of gunmen opening fire on concertgoers, he rushed to the site but couldn’t find her.
“I went around, searched, I asked everyone, I showed photographs. No one saw anything, no one could say anything,” Pogadaev told the Associated Press in a video message.
He watched flames bursting out of the building as he made frantic calls to a hotline for relatives of the victims but received no information.
As the death toll mounted on Saturday, Igor scoured hospitals in Moscow and the Moscow region, looking for information on newly admitted patients.
But his wife wasn’t among the 154 reported injured, nor on the list of 50 victims authorities have already identified, he said.
Refusing to believe that his wife could be one of the 133 people who died in the attack, Pogadaev still hasn’t gone home.
“I couldn’t be alone any more, it’s very difficult, so I drove to my friend’s,” he said. “Now at least I’ll be with someone.”
Updated
Serhiy Lysak, the Dnipropetrovsk region governor, said heating networks and power lines were damaged by falling debris after a Russian drone attack in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.
He wrote on Telegram that six hospitals, over 150 schools and 3,000 houses remained without heat due to a “voltage drop” in the city, which left several boiler plants disconnected.
Lysak also said that Russia targeted the Nikopol region, where thousands of people were left without electricity after the debris of a downed drone damaged an energy facility. Electricity has since been restored. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Updated
Overall, Russia launched 57 missiles and drones on Ukraine in the early hours of Sunday morning, including attacking Kyiv and the western region of Lviv that is near the Polish border, according to Reuters.
Poland’s foreign ministry has said Warsaw will demand explanations from Russia in connection with “another violation of the country’s airspace” as it called on Moscow to “stop terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine”.
Polska będzie się domagać wyjaśnień od Rosji w związku z kolejnym naruszeniem przestrzeni powietrznej kraju.
— Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych RP 🇵🇱 (@MSZ_RP) March 24, 2024
Przede wszystkim zaś wzywamy Federację Rosyjską do zaprzestania terrorystycznych ataków z powietrza na mieszkańców i terytorium Ukrainy.https://t.co/Gu1DRxVn2u
Poland’s armed forces said earlier that one of Russia’s cruise missiles briefly violated Polish airspace. This is not the first such reported violation.
According to the general staff of the Polish armed forces, a Russian missile entered the airspace of the Nato member at the end of December.
In April 2023, a military object was found in a forest close to the village of Zamość near the northern city of Bydgoszcz. It was later reported to be a Russian missile.
In November 2022, a stray Ukrainian missile struck the Polish village of Przewodów in the south, killing two people and raising fears at the time of the war in Ukraine spilling over the border.
Ukraine says it hit two large Russian landing ships in overnight strikes on Crimea
The Ukrainian military on Sunday said that it struck two large Russian landing ships and a communications centre used by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet during overnight strikes on the annexed Crimean peninsula, Reuters reports.
“The defence forces of Ukraine successfully hit the Azov and Yamal large landing ships, a communications centre and also several infrastructure facilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Crimea,” Ukraine’s military said.
A Russian-installed official reported a major Ukrainian attack overnight and said that air defences had shot down more than 10 missiles over the Crimean port of Sevastopol. These claims are yet to be independently verified by the Guardian.
Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed around a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the start of the war, usually in attacks at night using sea-based drones packed with explosives.
Russia and Ukraine have increased their air attacks in recent weeks.
On Saturday, Russia said that it had repulsed a barrage of Ukrainian missiles fired at the city of Sevastopol in Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Sevastopol’s governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said rocket fragments had killed a 65-year-old resident and four other people had been injured. “It was the biggest attack in recent times.”
Updated
Day of mourning in Russia as Putin vows to punish those behind 'barbaric' attack
Russia will observe a national day of mourning on Sunday after a massacre in a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130 people, the deadliest attack in Europe to have been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Flags are flying at half mast, numerous events have been cancelled and TV channels have updated their schedules.
Agence France-Presse reports that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has vowed to track down and punish those behind the “barbaric terrorist attack”, saying four gunmen trying to flee to Ukraine had been arrested. Kyiv has strongly denied any connection.
Putin, in his first public remarks on the attack, made no reference to a statement by IS claiming responsibility.
He has said that “all the perpetrators, organisers and those who ordered this crime will be justly and inevitably punished”.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said rescue workers were still pulling bodies from the burnt-out building on Saturday.
Rescuers would continue to scour the site for “several days”, the Moscow region’s governor said.
About 107 people were still in hospital, many in a critical condition, said the deputy prime minister, Tatyana Golikova.
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome to our latest live coverage of the aftermath of the concert hall massacre in Moscow. The official death toll stands at 133. Here’s an overview of the latest:
Russia will observe a national day of mourning on Sunday after the country’s deadliest attack for almost two decades.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has vowed to punish those behind the “barbaric terrorist attack”, saying four gunmen trying to flee to Ukraine had been arrested.
Ukraine has strongly denied any connection, with the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accusing Putin of trying to shift the blame on to them.
At least 133 people, including three children, were killed and 150 others injured when camouflaged gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall, in Moscow’s northern suburb of Krasnogorsk, and then set fire to the building.
As Russia lowered flags to half-mast for a day of mourning on Sunday over the deadly concert hall attack, officials said Russia had launched airstrikes on Kyiv and the western Ukrainian region of Lviv.
Poland’s armed forces said one of Russia’s cruise missiles briefly violated Polish airspace.
“The object entered Polish space near the town of Oserdow (Lublin Voivodeship) and stayed there for 39 seconds,” Poland’s armed forces said on the social media platform X. “During the entire flight, it was observed by military radar systems.”
The armed forces said that Poland, a Nato member, and allied aircraft were activated during the attack to ensure the safety of Poland’s airspace.
Meanwhile, Ukraine air defence forces destroyed about a dozen of Russia-launched missiles over Kyiv and in the vicinity of the capital, Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said. Only minor damage was reported from the attack.
In other developments:
A US national security council spokesperson said Islamic State bore sole responsibility for the attack and there was no Ukrainian involvement “whatsoever”. Adrienne Watson said that the US government a few weeks ago shared information with Russia about a planned attack in Moscow and issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on 7 March.
Several security analysts have said Islamic State’s claim of responsibility appears to be plausible and fits with a pattern of previous marauding attacks by Islamist militants.
The owner of the Crocus City Hall has said the building will be restored. “We will never forget those who fell victims to terrorists. What was destroyed by their dirty hands will be restored,” Crocus Group said in a statement.
Islamic State released what it said was footage of the attack. The 1.31-minute video, released on Saturday on the group’s Telegram channels, shows a closeup view of one of the gunmen opening fire on several people as he enters what appears to be the concert hall.
The four suspected gunmen arrested were all foreign citizens, Russia’s interior ministry said.
Images from inside the venue show the auditorium has been completely gutted by fire and the roof has collapsed. Russian authorities say people died both from gunshot wounds and the effects of the fire.
Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson Andriy Yusov told Reuters: “Ukraine was of course not involved in this terror attack. Ukraine is defending its sovereignty from Russian invaders, liberating its own territory and is fighting with the occupiers’ army and military targets, not civilians.”
A Russian airstrike hit Ukrainian critical infrastructure in the western Lviv region on Sunday morning, local governor Maksym Kozytskyi said.
“There were two preliminary hits to the same critical infrastructure facility that the occupiers targeted at night,” Kozytskyi wrote on Telegram.
Updated
