The suburban Moscow concert hall where gunmen opened fire on concertgoers was a smoldering ruin on Saturday as the death toll in the attack surpassed 130 and Russia's President Vladimir Putin claimed the four assailants were captured while fleeing to Ukraine. Kyiv strongly denied any involvement in Friday's assault, for which the Islamic State (IS) group's Afghan affiliate has claimed responsibility.
Here is what we know about the attack on the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk ahead of a concert by the Piknik rock band:
The attack
The four assailants, armed with Kalashnikov automatic weapons, arrived at the Crocus City Hall at around 7:40 pm local time in a minivan.
The men walked calmly towards the metal detectors, firing their automatic weapons point-blank in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail of bullets.
Verified video showed people rushing for the exits as repeated gunfire echoed above screams. The attackers walked through the concert hall aiming and then firing at civilians with controlled bursts.
Read moreIn pictures: Gunmen open fire in deadly attack on Moscow concert hall
Russian investigators said the men began to set fire to the building. Some witnesses said they poured some sort of liquid on seating and curtains in several places before igniting it.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said that fire services helped about 100 people escape through the basement of the concert hall.
TASS news agency said that all of the Piknik group had been evacuated safely.
Death toll
The Russian Investigative Committee, the top state investigative agency, said at least 133 people were killed in the attack.
Margarita Simonyan, a Russian state TV journalist, put the toll at 143.
The Moscow Region said 121 people had been wounded. Earlier it had said 60 of the injured were in a critical condition.
IS group claims responsibility
The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack, the group's Amaq agency said on Telegram about four hours after the shooting began.
"The attack comes within the context of a raging war between the Islamic State and countries fighting Islam," Amaq added in a statement citing security sources.
The United States has intelligence confirming Islamic State group's claim of responsibility for a deadly shooting at a concert near Moscow, two US officials said on Friday.
The officials said the United States had warned Russia in recent weeks about the possibility of an attack – a move they said prompted the US embassy in Moscow to issue a warning to Americans.
Two weeks ago the US embassy in Russia warned that "extremists" had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow.
The attackers
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had detained 11 people including the four men who carried out the attack. Russian media said the men had fled the scene in a white car and that the men were detained in the Bryansk region, about 340 km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow.
Some of the suspects were shown being interrogated on the side of the road in footage published by Russian media and Telegram channels with close ties to the Kremlin.
"I shot people," one of the suspects, his hands tied and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot beneath his chin, said in poor and highly-accented Russian. He gave his date of birth as 17 September, 1998 and his name as Shamsutdin Fariddun.
When asked why, he said: "For money." The man said he had been promised half a million roubles (a little over $5,000) over Telegram where he had been listening to a preacher.
Ukraine denies involvement
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the nation that that the four men who attacked the concert near Moscow were heading towards Ukraine when they were detained, and that they hoped to cross the border.
"They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them from the Ukrainian side to cross the state border," Putin said.
Putin cast the enemy as "international terrorism" and said that he was ready to work with any state which wanted to defeat it.
Kyiv has denied any involvement in the attack.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry said accusations against the country were "a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Putin of seeking to "shift the blame" onto Kyiv, adding: "What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious: Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else."
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters, AFP and AP)
