Russia is holding a day of national mourning following Friday’s concert hall massacre near Moscow, as relatives of the missing face an anxious wait to see if their loved ones survived the gun rampage.
Public events have been cancelled and flags are being flown at half-mast following the deadliest attack on the country’s soil in two decades.
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IS-K release footage of Moscow attack
Across the capital, billboards carried a picture of a single candle, the date of the assault and the words “We mourn”.
Thousands of flowers have also been left at a makeshift memorial near the Crocus City Hall music venue where 137 people were killed, including three children, and more than 150 were injured by heavily-armed gunmen.
As emergency crews continue to search the fire-ravaged building, some families still do not know if their relatives who went to the rock concert are alive.
Igor Pogadaev has been trying to find his wife after she stopped responding to his messages after going to the gig.
He said: “I went around, searched, I asked everyone, I showed photographs. No one saw anything, no one could say anything.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to tie Ukraineto the “bloody, barbaric terrorist act”, despite Islamic State’s Afghanistan affiliate – IS-K – claiming responsibility.
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Putin vows to ‘punish’ terrorists
The four suspected attackers are among 11 people arrested in connection with the atrocity by Russian authorities.
Making no mention of the Islamist terror group, Mr Putin claimed they were captured while trying to escape to Ukraine through a “window” prepared for them across the border.
The war in Ukraine, which began with Russia’s invasion of the country, recently entered its third year.
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Zelenskyy: Russia blaming Ukraine ‘predictable’
Russian media broadcast videos that appeared to show the detention and violent interrogation of the suspects.
The men were from Tajikistan, according to reports. The predominantly Muslim former Soviet country is in central Asia and borders Afghanistan.
The suspects have been brought to Moscow and although no legal hearing has been officially announced, there was a heavy police presence around the capital’s Basmanny District Court on Sunday.
Ukraine has strongly denied any involvement in the attack, with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying it was typical of the Russian leader and “other thugs” to seek to divert blame.
IS has released on its Telegram channels what it said was footage of the attack.
The White House said the US government had shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow, and issued a public advisory to Americans in the country on 7 March.
US intelligence officials said they had confirmed the IS affiliate’s claim.
“There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
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“We know that they are creating a smokescreen of propaganda to defend an utterly evil invasion of Ukraine.
“But that doesn’t mean it’s not a tragedy when innocent people lose their lives… But I take what the Russian government says with an enormous pinch of salt.”
The attack happened just days after Mr Putin secured his grip on power for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet era.
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”.