At Least 133 Killed and Many More Wounded in Moscow Concert Hall Attack. ‘We Are All One Big Family’ Says Lead Singer of Band That Was to Perform.

Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square in Moscow
At least 130 people were killed Friday night in a terrorist attack on a concert venue in the Moscow metropolitan area where over 7,000 concertgoers were about to hear a performance by the band Пикник, or Picnic.
Just before the performance was to begin, a group of gunmen in camouflage stormed the Крокус-Сити-холл, or Crocus City Hall, concert hall, bursting into the foyer opening fire and throwing incendiary devices in the worst terrorist attack on the Russian capital and on Russian soil in decades.
The attackers fanned out across the concert hall, firing at fleeing concertgoers before setting the building on fire and escaping into a waiting car.
The entire attack took just 20 minutes, leaving before security forces and emergency responders had even arrived at the scene.
The attack came just one week after Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated his fifth electoral victory.
Пикник is a popular Russian rock group known for its unique style which is a mixture of art rock, progressive rock, and original Russian rock.
The Russian government claimed that Ukraine was responsible for the attack but it soon became apparent that it was the work of jihadists, unrelated to the Ukraine war or domestic opposition to the Kremlin.
Before any guilt could be assigned, Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who has become one of the most outspoken of Russian commentators, warned that “if it is established that these are terrorists affiliated with the Kyiv regime” then they must be “ruthlessly exterminated”.
At the same time, , a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence called the attack a “deliberate provocation by Putin’s special services.”
Perhaps making matters worse was the fact that the United States, along with other Western governments, warned of intelligence suggesting such an attack earlier in March and warned its own citizens to avoid any large public gathering.
The United States had warned Moscow that ISIS militants were determined to target Russia in the days before Friday night’s attack took place, but President Vladimir Putin rejected the advice as “provocative.”
The militant group ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the assault in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency on Telegram on Friday.
The aftermath of the horrific attack on Friday conjured up the ghosts of the attack by Chechen gunmen on the Dubroka Theatre 22 years ago: Gunmen in an entertainment venue. Bodies lying on cold concrete.
President Putin, as has been the case previously when presented with intractable dilemmas, remained silent. He did not address the country until almost 20 hours after the attack, issuing a short video statement expressing deep condolences to the families of victims and calling the attack a “barbaric terrorist act.”
In his brief statement, he raised the already discredited idea that the terrorists had planned to escape the country over the border with Ukraine but anyone viewing the video, even with limited Russian language ability, could see that there was none of Putin’s usual John Wayne-like attitude or tough talk of past addresses. In its place, as one Muscovite lamented in a post on social media, ““we just got an old man who didn’t know what to say.”
In Germany, Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz condemned “terrible terrorist attack on innocent concertgoers in Moscow” in a statement issued Saturday. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron on Saturday said the United Kingdom condemned “in the strongest terms the deadly terrorist attack.”
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement that the United States “strongly condemns yesterday’s deadly terrorist attack in Moscow.”
“We send our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed and all affected by this heinous crime. We condemn terrorism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the people of Russia in grieving the loss of life from this horrific event.”
Shaman, the lead singer of  Пикник, said he will pay for the funerals of the victims and treatments of those injured during the attack.
“We are all one big family. And in a family there is no such thing as somebody else’s grief,” the singer, known for his nationalistic views, said in a video posted on the Russian social media network Vkontakte to his more than 600,000 followers.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)