World News Random, Random

[ashkor87]

I guess I'll put this here. The NY Times is reporting that Aleksei Navalny has died in prison, according to Russian state media.

Putin sees no need to pretend any more...who taught him that, I wonder ?!

[Suliso]

Navalny could have stayed in Germany. It was foolish to go back. He helped no one by doing it.

[Fastbackss]

Navalny could have stayed in Germany. It was foolish to go back. He helped no one by doing it.

He was quoted on his reasons for not doing so.

But it's tough for me to feel like the known (likely) consequence was worth it - and being a martyr doesn't help the cause.

Sure maybe he couldn't have been as effective from Germany, but criminy at least then would have still had some level of impact.

[ti-amie]

For Putin nemesis Alexei Navalny, long-feared death arrives in Arctic prison
By Robyn Dixon, David M. Herszenhorn and Catherine Belton
February 16, 2024 at 1:41 p.m. EST


A view of the entrance of the prison colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenetsk region of Russia, where Alexei Navalny was detained and where he died on Friday. (Antonina Favorskaya/AP)

RIGA, Latvia — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the defiant anti-corruption crusader and democracy champion who was President Vladimir Putin’s despised nemesis, died suddenly in an Arctic Russian prison colony Friday, penitentiary officials said, removing the most prominent figure inside Russia willing to challenge the Kremlin’s rule.

His death — foretold as almost inevitable, including by Navalny himself — sent shock waves across Russia and was quickly condemned by global leaders, some of whom joined Russian opposition figures in calling it a state-sponsored murder. Navalny, 47, had appeared in a court hearing by video link the day before, seemingly in good health and with his trademark humor intact.

Navalny’s family and his team, who continued to run his political operation in exile, had warned that his life was in danger since his arrest in January 2021, when he returned to Russia after recovering in Germany from being poisoned with a banned nerve agent. An investigation led by Navalny and Bellingcat, an investigative journalism organization, had identified a team of Russian federal security agents as responsible for the assassination attempt, and his supporters noted that in prison, he was in the clutches of the very government that had already tried to kill him several times.

In a dramatic appearance Friday at the Munich Security Conference, Navalny’s wife said she did not know whether to believe the reports from Russian authorities of his death because “they always lie.”

“But if this is true, I want Putin and everyone around him to know that they will be held accountable for everything they did to our country, to my family. And this day will happen very soon,” Yulia Navalnaya said. “I want to call on the international community and all people to unite and defeat this evil.”

The couple have two children — a daughter, 23-year-old Darya, and a teenage son, Zakhar.

Navalny had long resisted being called a “dissident,” a description he associated with hopeless opposition. Instead he sought to be viewed as a politician with aspirations of challenging Putin in a free and fair election. But last summer, after Russia’s politicized judicial system added 19 years for extremism to previous sentences totaling more than 11 years, Navalny wrote a long post on social media comparing himself to former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky and accepting his fate as a political prisoner.

Navalny’s death comes as Putin is campaigning for near-certain reelection next month with no serious opposition. A candidate who sought to run on an antiwar platform, Boris Nadezhdin, was disqualified by Russian election authorities because of alleged irregularities with signatures required to win a place on the ballot.

The loss of Navalny’s strong, fearless voice — which continued to resonate on social media even from the brutal prison colonies where he was often held in solitary-punishment cells — is a devastating blow to Russia’s opposition and the liberal antiwar activists still resisting Putin, mainly from outside the country.

Since ordering the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin has accelerated his shift from an authoritarian “managed democracy” to a more totalitarian regime, with escalating repression of his political opponents. Many, such as Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, longtime associates of Navalny, are in prison, while others fled the country.

In a column this week, Kara-Murza, a Washington Post contributor, nonetheless struck an optimistic note and said Nadezhdin’s upstart campaign “has exposed the lie behind the Kremlin claims of solid public support for Putin and for his war … This doesn’t mean that change will happen tomorrow or next month. But a society that feels more empowered and more confident about itself is suddenly a force to be reckoned with. And that is bad news for any dictator.”

Whatever official cause of death might be cited, few observers doubted that Navalny’s death was caused directly or indirectly by the Russian authorities, coming after the poisoning attempt in August 2020 and three years of ill treatment since his return.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country remains under attack by Russian forces that now occupy one-fifth of its territory, said the Russian leader was to blame.

“Obviously, he was killed by Putin, like thousands of others tortured and tormented by this creature alone,” Zelensky said at a news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Putin doesn’t care who dies as long as he maintains his position.”

“I’m literally both not surprised and outraged by the news-reported death of Navalny,” President Biden said. “But make no mistake … Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible.”

Analysts warned that Putin, increasingly isolated and hostile to the West, no longer cares about the condemnations of global leaders. Some noted that Putin has never faced real accountability for a string of deaths of other opponents who are believed to have been assassinated by Russian agents or proxies for the state, including Anna Politkovskaya, a crusading journalist who was shot in the foyer her apartment building in Moscow in 2006; and Boris Nemtsov, a close associate of Navalny, who was shot on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015.

Some of the sharpest reactions came from leaders of neighboring countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.

Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs was one of the first leaders to declare Navalny’s death to be a murder. Navalny “was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. “That’s a fact, and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime.”

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, whose mother and grandmother were deported to Siberia in Soviet times, posted: “Navalny’s death is yet another dark reminder of the rogue regime we’re dealing with — and why Russia and all those responsible must be held accountable for each of their crimes.”

The Kremlin denied any involvement in Navalny’s death, calling statements to the contrary by leaders across the world “unacceptable.”

“There is no statement from medics, no information from forensic experts, no final information from the FSIN [Federal Penitentiary Service], no information about the cause of death,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “And such statements are coming.”

Putin for years almost always refused to utter Navalny’s name, often referring to him by awkward euphemisms such as “the Berlin clinic patient,” as he was being treated in Germany following the poisoning. Putin did not mention his death when he met Friday with students and workers in Chelyabinsk in southwestern Russia. According to a reporter in the Kremlin pool from the state RIA Novosti news agency, Putin’s meeting took place after he was informed of Navalny’s death.

After antagonizing so many of Russia’s most powerful people with his anti-corruption activism and his relentless crusades against election fraud and other government malfeasance, Navalny was so often asked why he was still alive that he said he grew bored of the question.

“If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong,” he said in an Oscar-winning 2022 documentary about his life. “We need to utilize this power to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes.”

In December 2020, four months after Navalny was poisoned while on a campaign trip to Siberia, Putin brushed off a question at his annual news conference about evidence that government agents were behind the attack. He chillingly insisted that if the Russian authorities wanted to kill him, Navalny would already be dead.

“Who needs him?” Putin asked the hall full of journalists, chuckling. “If they really wanted to, they probably would have finished it.”

But Navalny and a team including Bellingcat’s Christo Grozev tracked down the members of the Federal Security Service team that had tailed Navalny repeatedly before his death, and Navalny even managed to coax a taped confession by phone from one of the agents who had been sent to clean up the poison smeared on Navalny’s underpants.

Russia’s elites, many of them deeply uneasy over Putin’s war on Ukraine and his moves to sever Western ties, were stunned and shocked by Navalny’s death. Some said it sent a chilling message to all Russians, marking a new chapter in Putin’s efforts to re-create a closed, deeply repressive Soviet-style regime, with no dissent tolerated.

“This is terrible for everyone. This will be used to frighten people even more,” said one Russian businessman, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “It is a new page in the history of this regime.”

The Russian authorities “will frighten people by saying you will end like Navalny,” the businessman added. “They don’t need to put 100 people in jail. It is enough to have the death in jail of just one.” The risk of opposing the Putin regime previously “was that you might sit in jail for a few years and then be set free. But now it seems they are not afraid to kill you in jail.”

A Russian official said it was impossible to say how Navalny could have died so suddenly after appearing to be in good spirits in a court appearance via video a day earlier.

“From the worst, most macabre causes, anything is possible. They already tried to poison him once,” the official said. “For now, there is nothing to say, apart from to express horror.”

Andrei Kolesnikov, a Russia-based analyst with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, said that by repeatedly punishing Navalny and sending him to harsh isolation cells, the prison authorities had gradually killed him.

“You have to understand they did this on purpose,” he said.

According to Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, Navalny was sent into isolation cells 27 times, often for trivial matters, most recently Wednesday for 15 days. In all, he spent around 300 days in solitary confinement.

Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on Telegram that: “This is not an accidental death in any way. This is a targeted political assassination,” he said, saying Putin was responsible.

Amid a heavy police presence, Navalny supporters in Moscow laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone on Friday, a memorial to the victims of political repression. There were similar spontaneous memorials in other Russian and foreign cities.

Navalny often sketched a vision of a Russia not only free, but also happy, where officials acted according to their consciences, not their material interests.

He called it the “beautiful Russia of the future.”

Herszenhorn reported from Brussels and Belton from London. Mary Ilyushina in Berlin, Francesca Ebel in London and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... sia-putin/

[ponchi101]

Analysts warned that Putin, increasingly isolated and hostile to the West, no longer cares about the condemnations of global leaders.

He has never cared.
And if Navalny ever thought that he was going to get out of Russia alive, that would have been foolish.
Message to leaders of oppositions around the world: martyrs are seldom useful. See, Biko, Stephen. And now, Navalny.

[ti-amie]

Michael Weiss
@michaeldweiss
Now they're hiding Navalny's corpse.



I don't know about the reliability of the source but if this is true...

[ti-amie]

A 'Christian' family moved to Russia to escape 'LGBTQ, trans,' but now they're 'ready' to 'get out'

The patriarch of a right-wing Canadian family of 11 had had just about enough of gay people in his country. “We didn't feel safe for our children there in the future anymore,” father Arend Feenstra told Russian media. “There's a lot of left-wing ideology, LGBTQ, trans, just a lot of things that we don't agree with that they teach there now, and we wanted to get away from that for our children.”

Yeah, if there’s one place that’s just not safe for kids, it’s Canada. Russia would be soooo much safer.

So Arend (and wife Anneesa) sold everything they had to move to sunny Russia and raise eight of their nine kids with “orthodox” values. They also gladly took donations on their social media platform from fellow right-wingers, all so they could live in Vladimir Putin’s wonderland. Russian officials assured them that they would work with them to get them established, and even help them get a farm. They did all of this just three weeks ago; long story short, they lived happily ever after.

Except they didn’t.

First, according to the family, the Russian bank where they moved the proceeds from selling their farm and belongings? It immediately froze their assets. The amount of money seemed suspicious, Arend states in a Feb. 9 video. I guess it would, since so many Russians outside of Putin’s circle are dirt poor. As a result, the family didn’t have money to live on—apparently those nice Russian officials offering to help them had disappeared.

Since no one in the family speaks Russian, they’ve also had a bear of a time trying to argue for their money—because Russia doesn’t require any bank, or any business, to hire English translators. In the meantime, they discovered that Russia is a pretty damn miserable place to be right now.

TikTok user Ukrainian.Networking translated a Russian Federation Reported Media story in a snarky post.

The Russian reporter noted that Anneesa spoke her mind in a since-deleted video on the family’s “Countryside Acres” YouTube channel.

"I'm very disappointed in this country at this point. I'm ready to jump on a plane and get out of here. We've hit the first snag where you have to engage logic in this country and it's very, very frustrating."

Hoooo boy. They just arrived and already she’s insulted Russia. Now, I’m not saying Russia doesn’t have freedom of the press, but it’s really just freedom to praise Putin and the country he controls. Anything that resembles criticism in Russia is NOT taken as kindly as it is in our godless Western dystopias. I’m also not suggesting that Russian officials paid the family a visit to remind them of where they are, but I will point out that Arend quickly posted an apology video to the Countryside Acres channel, saying that his wife misspoke and they’d deleted the video.

In that video, he reiterated that no, Russia is really, really great (subtext: “Please don’t push me out of a window”) and he spoke of his hope to resolve the issue with the bank. Commenters weren’t so sure, or kind. They pointed out that the bank will likely never release their funds and it is more likely that he will be recognized as a foreign agent.

At this point, I’m not sure the Countryside Acres farming gig is going to work out. Patriarch Arend should have agreed to be used as a tool for Russian state media. I mean, if you are going to be a Russian Asset, might as well go all-in.

I’m willing to bet that living in a country that grants gay people basic civil rights might not be looking so bad now. I was wondering if the family is desperately trying to split, so I looked up how difficult it is to leave Russia. According to the BBC, you can leave “as long as you have money and have not been called up to the army.”

Even if only for his kids’ sakes, let’s hope Arend’s only lost his money.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2 ... iving-hell

Apparently the oldest child opted not to make the trip. Videos are also at the link.

[ponchi101]

I feel so sorry for ... the kids.
What a tool.

[ti-amie]

I read about this a day or two ago but I thought it was a joke. It seems now that questions are being asked about the citizenship of the children, maybe to see if they can be returned home.

[ti-amie]

A killing in Spain points to Russia and Putin’s sense of impunity

By Greg Miller
February 21, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. EST


The building in Villajoyosa, Spain, where Maxim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine last year, was found fatally shot and run over by a car. (Eva Manez/Reuters)

The pastel-hued village where Russian pilot Maksim Kuzminov settled on the coast of Spain must have seemed a world away from the war he thought he had escaped last year when he defected to Ukraine. But the discovery of his bullet-riddled body last week appeared to deliver a menacing new signal from Moscow that those who cross the Kremlin — no matter how far they flee from the war’s front lines — should never consider themselves safe.

Kuzminov was killed in a barrage of gunfire and then run over with his own vehicle by assailants who then used the car to escape, according to Spanish authorities, Ukraine security officials and Spanish media reports.

The attack lacked the elaborate touches often associated with Russian assassination plots. He was not poisoned with a weapons-grade toxin or found in the wreckage of an aircraft that plunged from the sky. Yet the message behind Kuzminov’s death is the same as it has been through much of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two-decade tenure, according to Western security officials and experts.

“It is a reminder for everyone who is in exile and actively in opposition to the regime — they are all on somebody’s list,” said Eugene Rumer, a former senior U.S. intelligence official who directs the Russia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Versions of that message have been relayed repeatedly in recent months. The death of former Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin — whose plane exploded on its way to St. Petersburg weeks after he led an aborted military insurrection — showed that old, close ties with Putin are no protection.

The death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a remote Arctic penal colony last week signaled that even those serving multiyear sentences — often in solitary confinement and stripped of all meaningful ability to threaten the state — may not survive.

Kuzminov fell into a category that Putin, a former KGB officer, regards with particular scorn: traitors from within the military and security services. His presidency has been marked by a series of elaborate operations that seemed aimed at inflicting the most painful punishment possible on those accused of turning against Russia for the West.

Those targeted include Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, officer who died after being poisoned with polonium in London in 2006, according to British investigators; and Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer who survived an attack that left him and his daughter gravely ill from exposure to a nerve agent, Novichok, that is known to be produced only by a Russian lab.

Navalny narrowly survived an attempt on his own life by Russian security officials using the same substance in 2020. After recuperating in Germany, he returned to Russia in 2021 and was arrested upon his arrival.

Russia’s ability to carry out lethal operations beyond its borders was believed to have been substantially eroded by waves of expulsions of Russian spies from the country’s embassies. Europe alone has expelled more than 400 suspected Russian intelligence officers since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.


The car allegedly used by Kuzminov's killers and then left in flames is seen outside the Spanish Civil Guard barracks in El Campello on Feb. 14. (Alex Dominguez/Informacion.es via Reuters)

Kuzminov’s killing showed that Russia retains some capabilities in Europe despite the decimation of its spy networks, and has found ways to adapt, officials said. “They have made mistakes but learned lessons,” said a senior Ukrainian intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

In contrast to the intricate plots against Skripal and Navalny carried out by officers working directly for Russia’s intelligence services, the attack on Kuzminov in Spain more closely resembled a mob hit. The nature of the killing has prompted speculation that Russia has turned to criminal networks to compensate for its curtailed operational presence across Europe.

If so, Kuzminov’s decision to leave Ukraine for Spain’s Mediterranean coast may have been a particularly risky, if not reckless, move.

The Alicante region has for decades been associated with Russian organized-crime syndicates, according to officials and government reports. It also has a prominent Russian expatriate population — home to as many as 16,000 of the roughly 80,000 Russians who resided in Spain as of 2022, according to government figures.

Spanish authorities have mounted intermittent operations to root out the Russian syndicates, including one that occupied investigators for seven years before culminating in sweeping arrests and property seizures three years ago.

The case, dubbed “Operation Testudo,” exposed a “large-scale criminal network” linked to Russia that involved “murder, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, trafficking of human beings and extortion,” according to a news statement issued by Europol. Given the presence of such criminal networks, “Russia could recruit criminals and not [rely on] professional intelligence agents” to carry out the killing of Kuzminov, the Ukrainian official said.

It is not clear when Kuzminov arrived in Villajoyosa, a village along a section of Mediterranean shoreline known for its concentration of transplants from Russia. He appears to have been living in Spain under a false identity and Ukrainian passport, presumably provided by Ukraine’s military intelligence service, the GUR, which touted his defection last year aboard an Mi-8 transport helicopter packed with valuable Russian jet components as a propaganda coup.

Kuzminov appeared in a Kyiv-sponsored documentary describing his decision to defect after negotiating a deal in which Ukraine helped secure the relocation of members of his family from Russia and agreed to pay him $500,000.

It is not clear whether Kuzminov’s family members moved with him to Spain. Ukraine security officials said there were indications that Kuzminov may have compromised his own security by making contact with a former girlfriend in Russia, an assertion that could not be confirmed.

A former U.S. intelligence official said the killing of Kuzminov raises questions of “whether Western intel services have done enough to encourage Russian defections and provide for the security of defectors,” something that “should be a top priority for a variety of obvious reasons.”

The Western response so far to the death of Navalny seems to underscore a lack of retaliatory options against Russia, which has defied expectations in its ability to withstand Western weapons shipments to Ukraine, economic sanctions and diplomatic expulsions over the past two years.

Britain announced Wednesday that it would punish Russia for Navalny’s death by imposing economic sanctions on the “heads of the Arctic penal colony where Alexei Navalny was killed.” President Biden has said a package of U.S. sanctions is imminent.

Serhiy Morgunov in Kyiv, Souad Mekhennet and Shane Harris in Washington, and Isabella Carril in Madrid contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... n-message/

[Owendonovan]

The right prayer should get them out of Russia, no? Another glaring example of the wrong people reproducing.

[ti-amie]

Sri Lanka ends visas for hundreds of thousands of Russians staying there to avoid war

Investigation launched into order asking Russians to leave country amid blacklash over ‘whites only policy’
Shweta Sharma

Sri Lanka has told hundreds of thousands of Russians and some Ukrainians staying in the country to escape the war that they must leave in the next two weeks, immigration officers said.

The immigration controller issued a notice to the tourism ministry asking Russian and Ukrainian people staying on extended tourist visas to leave Sri Lanka within two weeks from 23 February.

Just over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka in the last two years since the war began, according to official data.

Commissioner-General of Immigration said the “government is not granting further visa extensions” as the “flight situation has now normalised”.

However, the office of president Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation of the notice to the tourism ministry in an apparent bid to prevent diplomatic tensions.

The president’s office said that the notice had been issued without prior cabinet approval and the government had not officially decided to revoke the visa extensions, reported the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror.

The exact number of visitors who extended their stay beyond the typical 30-day tourist visa duration remains unclear.

However, concerns have been raised over thousands of Russians and a smaller number of Ukrainians staying in the country for an extended period of time and even setting up their own restaurants and nightclubs.

Tourism minister Harin Fernando told Daily Mirror that the ministry has been receiving complaints of some Russian tourists running unregistered and illegal businesses in the southern part of the country.

Raids were conducted by the authorities following discussions with the Immigration Department, he said.

It comes amid a furious social media backlash over Russian-run businesses with a “whites only” policy that strictly bars locals. These businesses include bars, restaurants, water sports and vehicle hiring services.

In a bid to boost tourism and recover from its worst economic crisis since 2022, Sri Lanka began granting 30-days visas on arrival and extensions for up to six months.

In April 2022, the nation defaulted on its $46bn (£36 bn) foreign debt. The economic crisis triggered violent street protests for several months and ultimately culminated in the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa three months later.

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/sout ... 02986.html

[ponchi101]

Smart way to make the locals like you...

[ti-amie]

Steve Herman
@w7voa@journa.host
Meduza - On March 19, Vladimir Putin dismissed warnings from U.S. diplomats that there was an imminent risk of a terrorist attack at a crowded venue in Moscow. The Russian president called the warnings “outright blackmail” by the West and an attempt to “intimidate and destabilize our society.” https://meduza.io/en/live/2024/03/22/te ... ide-moscow

@Independent@press.coop
Gunmen in combat fatigues fire on Moscow concert hall crowds, killing and wounding several people

Russia’s top security agency, the Federal Security Service, says there are dead and wounded in a Moscow concert hall that is ablaze amid a shooting by several gunmen #press

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/vlad ... 17292.html

Several gunmen burst into a big concert hall on the edge of Moscow on Friday and sprayed visitors with automatic gunfire, injuring an unspecified number of people and starting a massive blaze in an apparent terror attack days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on the country in a highly orchestrated electoral landslide.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the raid, the worst terror attack in Russia in two decades that came as the fighting in Ukraine dragged into a third year. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described the attack as a “huge tragedy.”

Russia’s top domestic security agency, the Federal Security Service, said there are dead and wounded but didn't give any numbers.

Russian news reports said that the assailants threw explosives, triggering a massive blaze at the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow. Video posted on social media showed huge plumes of black smoke rising over the building.

The attack took place as crowds gathered for a concert of Picnic, a famed Russian rock band, at the hall that can accommodate over 6,000 people. Russian news reports said that visitors were being evacuated, but some said that an unspecified number of people could have been trapped by the blaze.

The prosecutor’s office said several men in combat fatigues entered the concert hall and fired at visitors.

Extended rounds of gunfire could be heard on multiple videos posted by Russian media and Telegram channels. One showed two men with rifles moving through the mall. Another one showed a man inside the auditorium, saying the assailants set it on fire, as gunshots rang out incessantly in the background.

More videos showed up to four attackers, armed with assault rifles and wearing caps, who were shooting screaming people at point-blank range.

Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said he was heading to the area and set up a task force to deal with the damage. He didn't immediately offer any further details.

Russian media reports said that riot police units were being sent to the area as people were being evacuated.

Russian authorities said security was tightened at Moscow’s airports and railway stations, while the Moscow mayor cancelled all mass gatherings scheduled for the weekend.

White House National Security Advisor John Kirby said Friday that he couldn’t yet speak about all the details but that “the images are just horrible. And just hard to watch.”

“Our thoughts are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack,” Kirby said. “There are some moms and dads and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters who haven’t gotten the news yet. This is going to be a tough day.”

The attack followed a statement issued earlier this month by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that urged the Americans to avoid crowded places in the Russian capital in view of an imminent attack, a warning that was repeated by several other Western embassies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who extended his grip on Russia for another six years in the March 15-17 presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on dissent, earlier this week denounced the Western warnings as an attempt to intimidate Russians.

[ti-amie]

At least 40 dead after explosion, gunfire hit popular Moscow concert venue
By Francesca Ebel and Mary Ilyushina
Updated March 22, 2024 at 4:56 p.m. EDT|Published March 22, 2024 at 2:14 p.m. EDT

Several gunmen opened fire Friday night at Crocus City Hall, a popular concert venue on the outskirts of Moscow, Russian state news agencies reported. Dozens of people were reported injured or killed and the building was on fire, in the most deadly terrorist attack in Russia for over a decade.

“People in camouflage, at least three, burst into the ground floor of the Crocus City Hall and opened fire from automatic weapons. There are definitely wounded,” state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing its correspondent at the scene.

“After that they threw a grenade or an incendiary bomb, which started a fire,” RIA Novosti added. “The people in the hall lay down on the floor to escape the shooting, and stayed there for 15-20 minutes, after which they began to crawl out. Many managed to get out.”

Videos shared on Russian Telegram channels and verified by The Washington Post, show four men in camouflage entering a large marbled hall and shooters firing rounds in a concert hall, misty with smoke.

Other clips show scores of bodies slumped on benches or on the ground and a large fire erupting from the building’s roof. The roof of the concert venue partially collapsed and the fire reached 3000 square meters, according to the state news service Interfax, which citied emergency services.

One graphic video showed a shooter firing for a full minute at point-blank range on a group of people trapped in an entranceway.

At least 40 people were killed and more than 100 wounded, the Tass news agency reported, citing the press office of the Federal Security Service.

Moscow region’s Health Ministry said that more than 30 regional and 20 Moscow ambulance teams have been deployed to the venue.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, and it was unclear whether the attack was related to Russia’s war in Ukraine, now grinding into a third year. Some foreign embassies in Moscow have issued warnings in recent weeks urging their citizens to avoid mass gatherings out of concern for the risk of attacks.

Ukraine swiftly denied responsibility for the attack. “Ukraine definitely has nothing to do with these events,” said Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency blamed Russia’s security services for the operation and said they would probably use the fallout to build support for their war in Ukraine.

The attack was “a planned and deliberate provocation by the Russian special services at the behest of Putin,” GUR said in a Telegram post. Its purpose was to “justify even tougher strikes on Ukraine and total mobilization in Russia,” the agency said.

Recent intelligence reporting indicated the ISIS K terrorist group, a branch of the Islamic State that has operated in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, was active inside Russia, two U.S. officials told The Washington Post. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said March 7 that it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings” in the Russian capital, “to include concerts,” and urged U.S. citizens to avoid them.

(...)

The attack began before the start of a Friday night concert by the rock band called Picnic. The musicians were apparently in their dressing room when it started. The concert was sold out, according to ticket agencies, suggesting that as many as 6,200 people may have been in the venue.

One witness said she was about to enter with her parents when the attack began.

“We were literally three steps away from the entrance when the shooting started … and a man fell down dead in front of me,” the girl, who gave her name as Anna, told the Russian channel TV Rain in a telephone interview. “People started shouting, ‘Run, they’re shooting!’ We didn’t realize it at first, because it sounded like firecrackers.”

Another witness counted “at least five” attackers, armed with assault rifles, ammunition and armored vests.

“They act like trained fighters,” the witness told Mash, a Russian Telegram channel. “At the moment of entering the building, the guards and people standing at the door were killed. Then they blocked the main entrance.”

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ordered assistance for those affected by the attack and said authorities would cancel all cultural, sport, and other mass gatherings for the weekend.

Valentina Matvienko, the speaker of Russia’s Federation Council, said “those who are behind this monstrous crime will suffer a well-deserved and inevitable punishment.”

Opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya called the attack “a nightmare.”

“Everyone involved in this crime must be found and held accountable,” Navalnaya, whose husband, Alexei Navalny, died last month in a Russian prison colony, wrote on social media.

Initial reports by Russian media suggested that some assailants might have barricaded themselves inside, and that there could be at least 100 people still in the building — some potentially trapped by fire on an upper floor. The scene outside the venue was chaotic as firefighters and other emergency responders worked at the site.

Moscow regional governor Alexei Vorobyev said at least 20 people had been hospitalized, four in critical condition.

Siobhán O’Grady and Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv, Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, and Shane Harris in Washington contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... ert-venue/

There is video at the link, some from inside of the hall when the shooting started.