Tajikistan Detains 9 People over Russian Concert Hall Attack

People line up to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial to the victims of a shooting attack set up outside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow Region, Russia, March 24, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
People line up to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial to the victims of a shooting attack set up outside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow Region, Russia, March 24, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
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Tajikistan Detains 9 People over Russian Concert Hall Attack

People line up to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial to the victims of a shooting attack set up outside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow Region, Russia, March 24, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo
People line up to lay flowers at a makeshift memorial to the victims of a shooting attack set up outside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow Region, Russia, March 24, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

Tajikistan has detained nine people this week suspected of having links to a mass shooting at a Russian concert hall last Friday and also to the militant group that claimed responsibility, a Tajik security source told Reuters.
Four suspected gunmen behind the deadliest attack in Russia in 20 years are Tajik citizens. They have been arrested along with seven other suspects, some of whom also come from the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation.
Tajikistan's state security committee detained nine people on Monday in the city of Vakhdat and the suspects are now in the capital, Dushanbe, the source said, without providing any further details.
At least 143 people were killed in the attack on the concert hall near Moscow.
Tajikistan, which is a member of a Russian-led security bloc and hosts a Russian military base, has also rounded up the families of the suspected gunmen so that Russian investigators can question them in Dushanbe, sources told Reuters this week.
The predominantly Muslim nation of 10 million bordering Afghanistan depends heavily on remittances from migrant laborers working in Russia. Its own economy was devastated by a civil war in the 1990s.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the concert hall attack and US officials say they have intelligence showing it was carried out by the network's Afghan branch, ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K).
Russian investigators said on Thursday they had found proof that the concert hall gunmen were linked to "Ukrainian nationalists", an assertion immediately dismissed by the United States as baseless propaganda.
Kyiv has strongly denied any involvement in the concert hall attack.



Russia Says It’s Waiting for Ukraine’s Response to May Ceasefire and Offer of Direct Talks 

Ukrainian servicemen of the Skala regiment artillery unit fire an M109 howitzer toward Russian positions, in an undisclosed area, in the eastern Donetsk region, on April 23, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP) 
Ukrainian servicemen of the Skala regiment artillery unit fire an M109 howitzer toward Russian positions, in an undisclosed area, in the eastern Donetsk region, on April 23, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP) 
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Russia Says It’s Waiting for Ukraine’s Response to May Ceasefire and Offer of Direct Talks 

Ukrainian servicemen of the Skala regiment artillery unit fire an M109 howitzer toward Russian positions, in an undisclosed area, in the eastern Donetsk region, on April 23, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP) 
Ukrainian servicemen of the Skala regiment artillery unit fire an M109 howitzer toward Russian positions, in an undisclosed area, in the eastern Donetsk region, on April 23, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP) 

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Ukraine had not responded to many offers by Russia President Vladimir Putin to start direct peace negotiations, and that it was unclear whether it would join a three-day ceasefire he has announced for next month.

"It was President Putin who repeatedly said that Russia is ready, without any preconditions, to start the negotiations process," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "We have not heard a response from the Kyiv regime so far."

Putin on Monday declared a three-day ceasefire in the war in Ukraine from May 8-10, when Russia plans lavish celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

Ukraine, in response, questioned why Moscow would not agree to its call for a ceasefire lasting at least 30 days and starting immediately.

"We value people's lives and not parades," President Volodymr Zelenskiy said.

Peskov said it was "very difficult to understand" whether Ukraine intended to join the ceasefire.