Vladimir Putin has claimed the gunmen behind the Moscow concert hall terror attack attempted to flee to Ukraine in the aftermath of the mass shooting.
The allegation, made by the Russian president during an address to the nation, came despite the Islamist terror group Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) claiming responsibility for Friday night’s attack, in which at least 130 people were killed.
Ukraine strongly denied any involvement in the shooting, which comes two weeks after the US shared intelligence with Russian security officials warning that “extremists” had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow.
In an address to the nation on Saturday, Mr Putin described the shooting as a “bloody and barbaric terrorist attack”.
He also claimed that Russia had intelligence which suggested Ukraine had prepared a “window” to allow the gunmen across the Ukrainian border.
“All four direct perpetrators of the terrorist attack, all those who shot and killed people, were found and detained,” Mr Putin said.
“They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border.”
He also declared Sunday as a day of mourning and said those responsible could “expect only one thing, they can expect punishment”.
On Saturday afternoon, officials in Russia said at least 133 people had died in the attack on the 6,000-capacity Crocus City Hall, in the western Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk – making it the second-deadliest single terror attack in Russia’s history.
As concert-goers gathered in the hall, the four men, armed with Kalashnikov automatic weapons, arrived in a minivan and walked calmly towards the metal detectors, before opening fire on civilians, often at point-blank range.
Russian investigators said the men began to set fire to the building during the shooting.
Hours later, IS-K, a regional branch of the Islamic State militant group operating in Central Asia and Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The group’s Amaq news agency said on the social media site Telegram that the attack came “within the context of a raging war between the Islamic State and countries fighting Islam”.
Central Asia is a fertile recruiting ground for IS-K, as are the restive republics of the Russian Federation, Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya.
The group claims Mr Putin and his regime are killing Muslims and have previously pointed to Russia’s military operations in Chechnya, Syria, and Afghanistan.
Russia’s interior ministry said all four of the gunmen were foreign nationals, but did not specify which country they were from.
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.
Russian media said the men had fled the scene in a white car and that the men were detained in the Bryansk region, about 210 miles (340km) southwest of Moscow.
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Following the attack, two anonymous US officials said Washington had intelligence confirming Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.
They also said the US had warned Russia in recent weeks about the possibility of an attack – ahead of the US embassy in Moscow issuing a warning to Americans in the city.
Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) has taken credit for attacks by other terror networks in the past, but it is almost certainly behind the deadly assault in Russia, though nothing is impossible.
The group has claimed responsibility, and the chatter picked up by Western intelligence services in the days leading up to the atrocity also indicated something was coming.
The number of people killed in Friday’s shooting near Moscow is grim and likely to keep climbing.
Many people presumed Islamic State (IS) had been neutered, but it has been growing in strength in recent years, particularly IS-K.
“We did warn the Russians appropriately,” one of the US officials said.
Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov, meanwhile, denied any Ukrainian involvement.
“Ukraine was of course not involved in this terror attack,” he told Reuters.
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Why would Islamic State attack Russia?
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also said on X: “Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist methods.
“Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign ministry accused Moscow of using the attack to “further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society”.
“We consider such accusations to be a planned provocation by the Kremlin to… create conditions for increased mobilization of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community,” the ministry said in a statement.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.