The investigation has obtained evidence of the connection of the terrorists who carried out the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue with Ukrainian nationalists, the Russian Investigative Committee said on Thursday.
"The initial results of the investigation fully confirm the planned nature of the terrorists' actions, careful preparation and financial support from the organizers of the crime. As a result of working with detained terrorists, analyzing the technical devices seized from them, analyzing information about financial transactions, evidence of their connection with Ukrainian nationalists has been obtained," the Russian Investigative Committee said on Telegram.
The terrorists received significant amounts of money and cryptocurrency from Ukraine, Russian investigators added.
"The investigation has confirmed data on the receipt of significant amounts of money and cryptocurrencies from Ukraine to the perpetrators of the terrorist attack, which were used in the preparation of the crime," the report said.
The committee also announced that another suspect involved in financing of terrorists that attacked the Crocus City Hall concert venue has been detained.
“Another suspect involved in a terrorist financing scheme has been identified and detained. The investigation will ask a court to select a preventive measure in the form of detention in relation to him,” the committee wrote on its Telegram channel.
On the evening of March 22, a shooting and fire broke out before a concert at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. A Sputnik correspondent who witnessed the incident reported that several men in camouflage and without masks burst into the hall, shooting people at close range and throwing incendiary bombs.
According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 143 people were killed. March 24 was declared a day of national mourning.
Four perpetrators of the March 23 attack were detained in the Bryansk region, near the border with Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin said they were trying to escape and were moving toward Ukraine, where the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for them to cross the border.
The president noted that a total of 11 people had been detained and that law enforcement agencies were working to uncover the entire terrorist support base. Director of the FSB Alexander Bortnikov noted that the radical Islamists could not have prepared this attack alone, they had help. He noted that the primary data of the detainees confirm the Ukrainian trail, and the Russian security services believe that the United States, the United Kingdom and Ukraine are behind the terrorist attack.
Putin noted that Russia is facing not only a carefully and cynically planned terrorist attack, but a prepared and organized mass murder of civilians. The president stressed that all the perpetrators, organizers and clients of this crime will be justly and inevitably punished.