The narrative that Daesh* (ISIS) was behind the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall does not meet with reality, Anatoliy Matviychuk, a military expert and retired colonel who has experience in combat operations in Afghanistan and Syria, told Sputnik.
"They [the perpetrators] were rushing to Ukraine. ISIS militants wouldn’t rush towards Ukraine unless Ukraine is ISIS [already], so they were rushing there in order to hide. So there is some inconsistency there," he noted.
Earlier, the Russian Federal Security Service said that after the terrorist attack, the criminals intended to cross the border between Russia and Ukraine through relevant contacts in Ukraine.
A shooting occurred on Friday evening in the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the city of Krasnogorsk, just outside Moscow, followed by a massive fire.
A Sputnik correspondent who witnessed the attack reported that at least three men in camouflage broke into the concert hall, shooting people point-blank and throwing incendiary bombs.
According to Sputnik's parent company Rossiya Segodnya news agency's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, at least 143 people died in the terrorist attack.
Eleven people were detained in connection with the attack, including four who were directly responsible, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said. All four were detained in the Russian region of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, a few hours apart, the FSB added.
*A terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other states.