Russia Ukraine war live: Moscow ‘tortures’ 5,000 Ukrainians as Kyiv says third of Putin’s Black Sea fleet destroyed

The death toll from the Moscow concert hall attack has increased to 140 after another victim died in hospital, Russian officials said.

That person was one of five who were taken to hospital in an “extremely grave condition”, and the doctors “did everything they could” to save them, Russia’s health minister Mikhail Murashko said.

A total of 80 people injured in the attack remain in hospital, the official added, and 205 others have sought outpatient medical assistance.

The Friday night massacre in Crocus City Hall, a sprawling shopping and entertainment venue on the north-western outskirts of Moscow, was the deadliest terror attack on the Russian soil in nearly 20 years. At least four men armed with automatic rifles shot at thousands of concertgoers and set the venue on fire.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had arrested 11 people the day after the attack, including four suspected gunmen, with the extremist group ISIS claiming responsibility.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained members Allya Ayat, a new age religious group orginiated in Kazakhstan, in the city of Rostov-on-Don, according to state news agency TASS.

The group has been banned as “extremist” under Russian law, with authorities on high alert following the deadly terror attack on a concert hall that killed at least 140 people.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Ukrainian government budgeted nearly $1.4 billion in 2024 to buy and develop weapons at home — 20 times more than before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

And in another major shift, a huge portion of weapons are now being bought from privately owned factories. They are sprouting up across the country and rapidly taking over an industry that had been dominated by state-owned companies.

A privately owned mortar factory that launched in western Ukraine last year is making roughly 20,000 shells a month. “I feel that we are bringing our country closer to victory,” said Anatolli Kuzmin, the factory’s 64-year-old owner, who used to make farm equipment and fled his home in southern Ukraine after Russia invaded in 2022.

Yet like many aspects of Ukraine’s war apparatus, its defense sector has been constrained by a lack of money and manpower – and, according to executives and generals, too much government red tape. A more robust private sector could help root out inefficiencies and enable factories to churn out weapons and ammunition even faster.

Russian state investigators said on Wednesday they would study a request from parliamentarians to investigate what they called the “organisation, financing, and conduct of terrorist acts” against Russia by the United States and other Western countries.

The director of Russia’s FSB security agency said on Tuesday that he believed Ukraine, along with the United States and Britain, were involved in an attack on a concert hall just outside Moscow that killed at least 139 people.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron posted on X: “Russia’s claims about the West and Ukraine on the Crocus City Hall attack are utter nonsense.”

Islamic State took responsibility for the Moscow shooting. Washington and Paris have said they have intelligence confirming the Islamist militant group was behind the attack.

Ukraine has sunk or disabled a third of Russian warships in the Black Sea, a navy spokesman has said.

Dmytro Pletenchuk made the comments after Kyiv “destroyed” the Russian landing ship Kostiantyn Olshansky that was resting in port in Sevastopol. The ship had previously been part of the Ukrainian fleet until it was captured in 2014 when Putin annexed Crimea.

Two other landing ships, the Yamal and the Azov, were also damaged in the attack, as well as the Ivan Khurs intelligence ship.

“Our ultimate goal is complete absence of military ships of the so-called Russian Federation in the Azov and Black Sea regions,” Mr Pletenchuk said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leader of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, agreed in a telephone call to further deepen political, economic and humanitarian ties, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Russia is seeking to strengthen relations with African countries, pitching Moscow as a friendly country without a colonial background in Africa.

It follows his call with Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita, with the two men agreeing to forge closer ties when it came to counter-terrorism, agriculture, the energy sector and mining.

Mali has in recent years become one of Russia’s closest African allies, with the Wagner Group mercenary force deploying there to fight anti-government rebels in the Sahel country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian government to look at how to organise the production of home-grown gaming consoles, state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.

Putin is trying to make Russia less dependent on consumer goods and electronics produced by what Moscow regards as hostile states due to sweeping Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s national football has provided a glimmer of hope after qualifying for the Euro 2024 tournament.

In a playoff final in Poland last night, the team defeated Iceland 2-1 and have now progressed to the group stages, with games set to take place in June and July.

Their opening game is set to be against Romania on 17 June and followed by matches against Belgium and Slovakia in Group E.

Posting on X, Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Thank you, team. For the important victory and making it to EURO.

“For proving once again, whenever Ukrainians face difficulties they do not give up and continue to fight, Ukrainians certainly win.”

Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry has urged citizens of the Central Asian nation to put off unnecessary travel to Russia after a deadly shooting that was blamed on migrants from the region.

The developments have increased existing anti-immigrant sentiment in Russia, especially towards migrant labourers from the predominantly Muslim countries of Central Asia.

A Kyrgyzstan-born man was remanded in pre-trial custody by a Russian court on Tuesday, accused of providing accommodation to the four suspected perpetrators, who are of Tajik origin. Those four and three others of Tajik origin suspected of complicity are also in pre-trial detention.

Islamic State has said it was responsible for the attack and has released video footage of the massacre, which killed 139 people and wounded 182. The group has not identified any of the attackers.

Hundreds of thousands of people from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan work in Russia, and some have already said it has become tougher for them to do so. Some passengers, for example, refuse to board taxis with Tajik drivers.