Four suspects have been arrested for an attack on a Moscow concert hall that resulted in 115 deaths, according to Russian officials on Saturday.
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the Bryansk region arrested four suspects in connection with the attack on the Crocus City Hall music venue. attack on Crocus City Hall music venue, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a Telegram post translated from Russian, according to Google Translate.
The current death toll stands at 115, another translated Telegram post from the investigative authority said.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, in which Russia’s Federal Security Service said multiple gunmen opened fired at the concert hall. Three gunmen wearing camouflage using automatic weapons can be seen in video footage from the concert hall.
U.S. agencies had confirmed that the Islamic State was behind the Moscow attack, a U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press.
White House national security adviser John Kirby said footage of the attack is “hard to watch” Friday, and that there isn’t evidence Ukrainians were involved despite some Russian lawmakers blaming Ukraine for the attack, according to The AP.
“The images are just horrible. Just hard to watch, and our thoughts obviously are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack,” Kirby said Friday. “No indication at this time that Ukraine or Ukrainians were involved in the shooting.”
An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, also pushed back on claims of his country being involved in the attack in a Friday post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Ukraine certainly has nothing to do with the shooting/explosions in the Crocus City Hall (Moscow Region, Russia),” Podolyak said in his post. “It makes no sense whatsoever.”
“First of all, Ukraine has been fighting with the Russian army for more than two years. And everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield,” Podolyak continued. “Only by the quantity of weapons and qualitative military decisions. Terrorist attacks do not solve any problems…”
