Crocus City Hall attack
Background
In the 2000s, Russia faced significant terrorist attacks, including the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 and the Beslan school siege in 2004.
During its involvement in the Syrian Civil War, Russia conducted military operations against the Islamic State to support President Bashar al-Assad's government.
In October 2015, Islamic State militants downed a Russian passenger jet over Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.
ISIS was also responsible for the bombing of the Russian embassy in Kabul in 2022.
Analyst says that IS–KP "has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticizing Putin in its propaganda."
Prior warnings from other countries
On 7 March 2024, the Russian Federal Security Service announced that it had neutralized a terrorist cell linked to IS in Moscow, which had intended to attack a synagogue in the city.
Hours later, the United States Embassy in Moscow warned that "extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts" and advised US citizens to "avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours," to avoid crowds, to stay updated by monitoring local media, and to maintain awareness of surroundings.
Canada and the United Kingdom also issued similar warnings to their citizens in Russia.
That day, the US also privately warned Russian officials of the danger of an impending attack from IS–KP from intelligence gathered earlier in March, under the US intelligence community's "duty to warn" requirement.
US officials later stated that the attack was related to the prior US warning, and also said that the intelligence reports that the warning was based on had been shared with Russian officials before the attack.
In contrast, the Russian ambassador to the United States said that in regards to the attacks "no concrete information, nothing was passed to us"
The head of the FSB said that the US warning was "of a general nature.”
Three days before the Crocus City Hall attack, President Putin told the board of the FSB that Western warnings of a potential attack inside Russia were "provocative" and "resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilise our society."