Dazed, shocked and sometimes incredulous, Russia mourned those who died in Crocus City Hall on Friday, March 22. On Saturday, the day after the attack claimed by the Islamic State organization, hundreds of Muscovites laid flowers and cuddly toys in front of the half-burnt exhibition center in Krasnogorsk, on the outskirts of Moscow. Terrorists armed with automatic rifles had burst into the hall to start killing, before a concert by the rock band Picnic.
Sunday was a day of national mourning, decreed by President Vladimir Putin. Thousands of people gathered in Moscow, and thousands more in the rest of the country at improvised memorials. Flags were flown at half-mast, including those at the embassies of most Western countries. Thousands of people lined up to donate blood.
The toll, which rose steadily over the weekend, reached 144 dead and 285 wounded on Monday. It has caused an emotional response more palpable than the one surrounding the war in Ukraine. Eyewitness accounts told of the brutality of the attack. Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K), the terrorist group's Afghan branch, released a message claiming responsibility for the attack on Saturday, accompanied by footage showing the four suspects in action. The attackers not only fired into and around the venue but also cut the throats of wounded spectators with knives. They provoked an immensely deadly fire.
Will there be time for questions once Russia has mourned? In any other country, that would be the case, given how many questions are raised. But not in Russia. No one will have the opportunity to call Putin to account, despite the fact that he alone embodies the flaws revealed by this attack.
Three days before the tragedy, the president brushed aside the United States' many warnings of an imminent attack, both public and transmitted from agency to agency, as confirmed by the Russian side. Putin called them "provocations and obvious blackmail, designed to destabilize and frighten our society," on March 19 in front of his former colleagues of the Federal Security Service (FSB), preferring to focus on what he sees as the real enemies threatening the country: "traitors." These are not just words: Cases officially linked to "terrorism" increased exponentially in 2023 – almost exclusively concerning opponents of the war in Ukraine.
There were also security flaws. The special forces dispatched to Crocus City Hall on Friday evening intervened more than an hour after the first shots were fired, giving the terrorists time to leave the scene and delaying the firefighters' intervention. It also took law enforcement more than five hours to arrest the suspects, who fled in the vehicle in which they had arrived.
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