The Crocus fallout. How the deadliest terrorist attack in recent Russian history seeped into every corner of the country’s courts

Guns on the day of mourning, shots outside a concert hall

On March 24, 2024, two days after the Crocus attack, Dildorbek Abulkasyimov and Mansurbek Muminov went for a stroll through the small town of Chernyshevsk in Zabaikalsky krai, carrying a toy Kalashnikov. According to the men, Muminov, who worked in a shop, had sold the toy to his friend on credit. Abulkasyimov tore open the packaging on the spot and walked home with his purchase in hand, Muminov alongside him.

In court, the pair insisted their “childish prank” had nothing to do with what happened at Crocus, and that they simply hadn’t realised March 24 had been declared a national day of mourning.

Investigators saw it differently. Abulkasyimov and Muminov, citizens of Kyrgyzstan, “possessing a distinctly Central Asian appearance and being of Uzbek nationality,” had walked down the street and into a shop, one of them holding a toy rifle “in a firing position,” “demonstrating pleasure in their own actions” and “thereby causing a sense of alarm and fear” among bystanders. The security forces attributed their behaviour to a “false belief in the superiority of their nationality.”

The pair were swiftly detained, made to apologise on camera in front of a Russian flag, and remanded in custody on hooliganism charges.

Some witnesses later said that Abulkasyimov and Muminov had frightened them, “since these men had beards, looked like Uzbeks, and were carrying an automatic rifle.” Some considered the incident “a mockery of the victims of terrorism.” The chair of the local education committee said that after the incident, many parents were afraid to send their children to schools and kindergartens, and attendance “was lower than usual.”

In November 2024, the court sentenced Abulkasyimov to two years; Muminov received a year and ten months.

Five days after the attack, on March 29, a similar incident occurred in Penza. Khalid Dzhumaev, a Chechen man who had fallen out with acquaintances, arranged to settle the dispute outside the local philharmonic hall. According to investigators, he turned up with his father’s Saiga hunting rifle and fired at his opponents’ feet. Bystanders said the scene reminded them of the Crocus attack. Dzhumaev himself insisted he had been carrying an airsoft gun, not a hunting rifle, and had never fired it, merely held it. The court found him guilty and in June 2025 sentenced him to four and a half years for hooliganism and illegal possession of a weapon.

Kiosk arson, random ID checks, and a phone snatched in a pub

In the wake of the Crocus attack, the Russian authorities made a conspicuous show of cracking down on migrants. But Russians, too, were punished for what followed.

Yevgeny Likhotin, a 61-year-old retired Roskomnadzor official in the Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk, faced three criminal charges. Early on the morning of March 24, upon learning of the attack, he recorded a voice message on WhatsApp for an acquaintance. The verdict quotes it as follows: “If you see a churban—kill him (expletive), there’s no reason for these (expletive) (no need for [expletive]) to be (expletive) on Russian soil. This is Dushanbe, this is Dushanbe all over again (expletive), when they (expletive) cut off Russians’ heads (expletive), stinking (expletive). And this (expletive) brought them here, (expletive) by the millions, (expletive).” According to Likhotin, he accidentally forwarded this message to eleven other contacts. 

Likhotin clarified that he had not been drunk, though he had downed a shot of vodka to lower his blood pressure, on his doctor’s advice.

That same morning, he decided to act on his words. He grabbed a gun, drove to the fruit-and-vegetable stalls and recalled old grievances—the vendors allegedly often put “stale, bruised vegetables” in his bag, and once called him a “giaour”—and “decided to take revenge and teach the young people a lesson.” He doused two kiosks with gasoline from a can, set them on fire, and shot at the vendors’ minibus. Nobody was hurt, but he threatened the traders at gunpoint.

“He shouted at them that if they had come as guests, they should behave like guests. Then he drove off to buy spirits at the corner of Gorky Street and Pushkin Street. He sat drinking in his car and was detained on the spot,” the verdict states.

The court found Likhotin guilty of hooliganism, arson, and incitement to extremism. He received three years and two months.

Yevgeny Belyaev from Orsk, a city in the Orenburg region near the Kazakh border, claimed he had merely wanted to check a passer-by’s phone “for ties to terrorist organisations.” He was charged with robbery. According to the verdict, Belyaev had been drinking with a friend and “a young man whose name he did not remember” on a playground near a Magnit supermarket when he spotted “two men of Asian appearance” walking out of a shop with bags.

Dressed, as it happened, in camouflage, Belyaev approached them, introduced himself as a military police officer, and, brandishing a pocket knife, demanded identification, “since he had become more vigilant toward people of Asian appearance after the attack at Crocus City Hall.” Whether the men were in fact foreign nationals is unclear from the verdict.

They showed their passports. Belyaev’s drinking companion confirmed that “everything was fine and they should be let go,” according to one of the men, who testified as a witness. The other, recognised as the victim, tried to call the police, but Belyaev snatched his phone, declaring that “he had just got back from Ukraine, and they were walking around here freely.” He then grabbed the men’s shopping bags—six large bottles of lemonade, two litre cartons of Dobry juice, three packets of Yubileynoye biscuits, and five packs of oatmeal—and ran. But as the court drily noted, he was unable to “carry out his intent to steal the food”: the bags tore, the contents spilled, and Belyaev was left with a single mobile phone worth 3,849 roubles and 45 kopecks (roughly $45.71).

He was detained almost immediately. In court, he claimed to have served with the Wagner Group, though this was not confirmed. In July 2024, he was sentenced to a year and two months in a maximum-security colony.

Another Orsk resident was convicted over a brawl at the Bochka pub in the summer of 2024. Vitaly Merkulov had been discussing the Crocus attack with friends when a stranger—described by witnesses as “an Asian” and “a Tajik”—joined the conversation. Merkulov’s group insisted the man had been aggressive from the outset; the victim said it was they who had accused him of the attack being the work of his "compatriots." The verdict gives no clear account of how the argument escalated, but Merkulov ended up punching the man and taking his phone. In November 2024, he was sentenced to three years for robbery.

Another Orsk resident was convicted for a brawl at the “Bochka” pub in the summer of 2024. Vitaly Merkulov was discussing the terrorist attack at Crocus with his friends. A stranger, whom witnesses described as an “Asian” and a “Tajik,” joined their conversation. Merkulov and his friends claimed that the man behaved aggressively from the start; according to the victim, however, it was Merkulov’s group that began accusing him of the attack being carried out by his “compatriots.” It is not entirely clear from the verdict how the argument unfolded, but ultimately Merkulov struck his opponent and took his phone. In November 2024, he was sentenced to three years in prison for robbery. 

A fight over news of the terrorist attack took place on March 23 at Mordovia’s IK-6, the infamous Torbeevsky prison for life-sentenced inmates. A radio broadcast reported that a terrorist attack had occurred at Crocus City Hall, many people had died, and the terrorists had allegedly been promised 500,000 rubles ($6,000) each. Upon hearing this, one of the inmates in cell No. 39 allegedly said that “if he were offered $10,000, he would have slaughtered that herd—that is, all the civilians [at Crocus].” At least, that is the version presented in court by his cellmate Ilya Arkhipov, who beat him. However, according to witnesses, Arkhipov did not attack his cellmate immediately, but only after the latter, for some reason, began flushing the bread left over from breakfast down the toilet. 

The victim himself denied having said anything about being willing to kill for money. His name is withheld in the verdict—it is impossible to verify whether a case has been opened against him for justifying terrorism.

In August 2024, Ilya Arkhipov was found guilty in assault—and five months of restricted freedom were added to his life sentence for murder.

Fired from a window, wrote comments, didn’t leave in time

Neighbors called the police because Maxim Lisin, a resident of Blagoveshchensk, went out onto his balcony and fired “at least six times” into the air with a rifle using stun rounds. As Lisin himself explained, he did this in memory of the fallen “special military operation” soldiers and the victims of the terrorist attack at Crocus. 

On March 25, 2024, he was sentenced to 12 days of administrative detention under the article on disobeying police: Lisin had grabbed the officers who responded to the call by their clothing. 

After the Crocus attack, Lisin expressed his feelings by firing shots. But, judging by court rulings, a far more frequent scenario was for grieving and outraged Russians to limit themselves to comments online. Law enforcers drew up reports against them under the administrative article on inciting hatred. 

For the most part, citizens were fined 5,000–10,000 rubles for xenophobic comments: “Blackies are killing us,” “Those churbans have shown their faces again,” “They come to Russia to kill Russians. Officials who made Russia’s borders ‘full of holes’ should be prosecuted as accomplices to terrorists,” “Russians need to come together and demand that the authorities send all migrants back to their homelands… absolutely EVERYONE,” and so on.

In December 2024, Islomidin Menikulov, a citizen of Tajikistan, was punished for posting a video in Uzbek featuring remarks by an activist from Hizb ut-Tahrir—which is banned in Russia—regarding the terrorist attack. According to a translation by an FSB expert, the video’s author put forward the following conspiracy theories: “The Russians organized the terrorist attack themselves,” “The attack was organized unprofessionally—this is the Russians’ modus operandi,” and “The FSB planted the bombs, this was a staged attack.” The Gatchina City Court in the Leningrad region fined Menikulov 15,000 rubles ($180). 

After the attack, courts imposed fines and deportation from Russia on many foreigners under various articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses regarding violations of migration laws. Reading the rulings in such cases, one can understand the difficulties foreigners faced in Russia due to the demonstrative tightening of migration policy. Some did not leave the country on time, fearing that after the attack on Crocus they would not be allowed back in. Several people said they simply could not return to their home countries because the border was closed due to the attack. One ruling quotes a foreign woman who complains that the migration service in St. Petersburg was not operating for three weeks. 

Lost Ani Lorak tickets, failed gardner’s meetings, and giving a loan to scammers

The tragedy at Crocus also had repercussions in civil court proceedings. A family from Chita sued Sibir Airlines over its refusal to refund their tickets. The plaintiffs wanted to cancel their trip due to their child’s illness, but they were unable to reach the “hotline”: on the day of the attack, “there were certain problems (restrictions) with communication.” 

In the Stavropol krai and the Ulyanovsk region, people sued travel agencies over trip cancellations following the attack. A resident of Lyubertsy in the Moscow region demanded a refund for tickets to a concert by Ani Lorak, who was scheduled to perform at Crocus” in late April. 

Mediazona discovered three lawsuits filed against non-commercial gardening associations (known as SNTs in Russia). These cases were heard by courts in Mozdok, Lipetsk, and Nizhny Tagil. The plaintiffs complained that, because of the ban on mass gatherings after the terrorist attack, SNT member meetings were held in absentia or in violation of procedure. 

A woman injured in the terrorist attack demanded recognition of her right to compensation for inpatient treatment—despite her serious condition, she was for some reason hospitalised only several days later. The court granted her request. 

According to one of the lawsuits, in September 2024, telephone scammers convinced a resident of Elektrostal, Moscow region, that money from her account was going to the terrorists who attacked Crocus City Hall. She took out a loan for 800,000 rubles ($9,600) and transferred the entire sum to the scammers. The bank demanded repayment of the loan, but the court allowed the victim not to.

Editor: Dmitry Tkachev