TRANSCRIPT
Russia's chief investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, says the death toll of last week's Crocus concert hall attack in a Moscow suburb had risen to 139 after two of the injured died in hospitals.
“Initial results of the investigation indicate that the terrorist attack was carefully planned and prepared. The attack killed 139 people, 75 of whom have been identified. There are three children among the victims. The identification of victims continues.”
On Monday, Russia's Federal Security service said seven more suspects have been arrested.
Mr Bastyrkin says the suspects of all those arrested had admitted their guilt and had been cooperating with investigators.
“The four perpetrators of the terrorist attack were charged and taken into custody. All the accused, during interrogation and in court, admitted their guilt and gave detailed testimony about the circumstances of the crime, about the customers and persons who assisted in the preparation of the terrorist attack."
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the attackers were 'radical Islamists', hinting at Ukrainian involvement.
“We know that the crime was committed by the hands of radical Islamists, followers of the ideology that the Islamic world itself has been fighting against for centuries. We also see that in the U.S., through various channels, they are trying to convince their satellites and other countries of the world that, according to their intelligence data, there is allegedly no trace of Kiev in the Moscow terrorist attack. The bloody attack was carried out by followers of Islam, members of the ISIS organization banned in Russia. We know by whose hands this atrocity was committed against Russia and its people. We are interested in, who is the customer?”
According to the Associated Press' Russia correspondent Jim Heintz, the I-S group, which has claimed responsibility for the Moscow concert attack, has recruited widely in Tajikistan.
“The four men who are charged in Russia with the Moscow theatre attack that killed at least 137 people, are all citizens of Tajikistan. Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics and it's one where both poverty and religious tensions have created a volatile brew. The Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attack, has recruited extensively in Tajikistan, and Tajikistan itself is afflicted by religious tensions stemming from a civil war in the 1990s."
He explains why IS has chosen to target Russia.
“Most of the terrorist attacks that have hit Russia over the past quarter century were attributed to, or claimed by, Islamic militants from the separatist Republic of Chechnya. However, that began to change in 2015 after Russian troops began fighting against the Islamic State in Syria, and since then terrorist attacks have been largely claimed by Islamic State militants including the 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner and an attack on the Saint Petersburg subway system."]]
Meanwhile in Moscow, this concert hall survivor, who did not give her name, tells Russian television of the horror she and her daughter experienced.
“My youngest daughter said that some scary, strange sounds were heard from behind. More shots began to be heard from above. We sat down, hid behind the chairs, and when the shots stopped, we got up and went out into the lobby. We ended up on the emergency staircase. We went up, there was no way out, we went down, there was no way out, and there was fire already there. And, then we lost consciousness."
Fourteen year old boys Islam Khalilov and Artyom Donskov were working at the cloakroom of the concert hall when the gunmen burst in and started shooting at people.
The teenagers have been credited with saving dozens of lives as they directed people away from what would have been a dead end.
Artyom explains.
“All the people started running in panic to the utility room, it all was happening on the minus first floor, while the terrorists were on the first floor. None of those who we were evacuating was hurt, nobody was left there, we tried to evacuate absolutely everybody."
Islam was also there and describes how the moment felt.
“Of course, there is pain in my soul, I want to cry, the fact that this happened on Friday, that this happened at all, there are simply no words, I cannot say."
The boys received diplomas from Russia's children ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova.
Meanwhile, members of the UN Security Council observed a moment of silence to honour the victims of the attack.
Amazaki Kazuyuki is the Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations.
“At the outset of the meeting I should like at the request of the delegation of the Russian Federation and on behalf of the members of the Security Council to ask that all those present now stand and join in, observing a minute of silence to present its condolences and sympathy to the government and people of Russia, and in the memory of victims of the heinous and the cowardly terrorist attack at the concert hall in Moscow region, the Russian Federation, on 22nd of March. I now invite you to stand and observe a minute of silence."
This comes as residents of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, sought shelter in metro stations as air raid alarms went off for a second time on Monday.
It's the third time Russia has launched missiles against Kyiv in five days, part of an apparent escalation of aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities as the war stretches into its third year.
Morning ballistic strikes were delivered quickly, just minutes after the air raid alarms went on, so people quickly headed to metro stations when alarms went off again.
