The final death toll from the terrorist attack on the concert hall in Moscow on March 22 could be much higher than the official one, which so far stands at 143 confirmed deaths. Bazaa Telegram channel linked – according to reports on Guardian – reported to the Russian security services that another 95 people were missing and were not included in the official register of victims. Meanwhile, investigations into the attack claimed by ISIS-K continue: while Moscow continues to accuse Kiev, a Turkish lead emerges (ALL LIVE NEWS ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE).
The accusations of the Russian Investigative Committee
The Russian Investigative Committee said that the initial findings of the investigation into the massacre had revealed “evidence” of the connection between the perpetrators of the attack and “Ukrainian nationalists”. He added that the perpetrators of the attack received “significant sums of money and cryptocurrencies from Ukraine which were used to prepare the attack.” Furthermore, he explained that he had stopped a person accused of being involved in financing terrorists, with money that according to the same source came from Ukraine. “Accusing Ukraine, the US or whoever else suits the Kremlin’s narrative is pure propaganda,” replied the spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby. He reiterated that “the only person responsible for the attack on Moscow is ISIS” and that the United States had shared information about a possible attack with Russia.
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The Turkish track
Meanwhile, a Turkish lead emerges. Shamsidin Fariduni is the 25-year-old Tajik who Russian investigators consider to be the organizer of the attack. Traces of his stays in Turkey can be found on Instagram: on February 23, Fariduni published eight photos, six of which were taken at the Fatih mosque in Istanbul, in the neighborhood of the same name, the most conservative in the city. Like another of the four attackers, 30-year-old Saidarkrami Rachabalizoda, Fariduni was in Turkey for vizaran, the extension of his visa-free residence permit in the Russian Federation. Fariduni had arrived on February 20 to leave – he said – on March 4, aboard the same flight as Rachabalizoda that had arrived on January 5. As Repubblica writes, an official of the Turkish security services confirmed the Turkish stay of the two attackers, even if he set the date of their departure as March 2. “The two suspects, originally from Tajikistan, had been living legally in Moscow for a long time and were free to travel unhindered between Russia and Turkey in the absence of an arrest warrant against them,” he told Afp on condition of anonymity, wishing to clarify: “We believe that these two individuals were radicalized in Russia, given their short stay in Turkey.”
Moscow’s suspicions about Kiev
The Turkish presidency did not mention the Turkish movements of the attackers when reporting the telephone conversation between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin. And the Russian authorities have not commented on the stay of the two attackers in the Bosphorus megalopolis. Moscow, moreover, is pushing for the so-called “Ukrainian track”. But some members of the “inner circle” around Putin would have contested the hypothesis of Ukrainian involvement proposed by the Russian president. At least according to what he writes Bloomberg, citing “four people who have close ties to the Kremlin”. A version denied by Moscow, which defined it as “the mother of all fake news”.
