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Shooting Erupts at Russia’s Spy Agency Shooting Erupts at Russia’s Spy Agency
(32 minutes later)
A deadly shooting erupted in or near the headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service in central Moscow on Thursday evening, and Russian news reports said up to three people were killed, at least some of them employees of the spy agency. This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
The shooting — highly unusual for one of the most secure parts of Moscow — came on the same day that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia gave his annual televised news conference. MOSCOW — A deadly shooting erupted near the fortresslike headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service in central Moscow on Thursday evening, the security agency said in a statement that also reported several people had been wounded. Russian news reports said up to three people had been killed.
The Izvestia news site said the shooting broke out in the reception area of the Federal Security Service building in Lubyanka in central Moscow but other reports suggested the gunfire was outside. “An unknown person opened fire near building #12 on the Bolshaya Lubyanka street,” the F.S.B.’s statement said, according to the Interfax news agency. “Some people were injured.”
The statement also said that the assailant had been “neutralized” and was being identified.
The Izvestia news site said that Thursday’s shooting broke out in the reception area of the headquarters.
The shooting was highly unusual for a heavily guarded area of central Moscow — home to the vast headquarters of the country’s powerful secret police agency, the main successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B., as well as to many other government buildings. The Kremlin is less than a mile away.
The area around the building was quickly cordoned off by police officers.
The shooting came on the same day that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a former K.G.B. agent, gave his annual televised news conference and hailed Russia’s political stability.
Shortly after Mr. Putin ended the marathon session with journalists, which lasted more than four hours, the Moscow night was filled with the shriek of sirens as police and ambulances raced to the headquarters of the security agency, known by its Russian acronym F.S.B.
Multiple videos from the scene, posted by bystanders, who happened to be in this busy area of the Russian capital, showed groups of policemen moving in the area with loud gunshots audible in the background. One police officer can be heard shouting to bystanders to run away from the scene.
The massive stone building was last attacked in 2015 when a Russian performance artist, Petr Pavlensky set fire to its wooden doors.
The building, constructed at the end of the 19th century for an insurance company and then heavily rebuilt during Soviet times, has been the headquarters of Russia’s secret police since soon after the 1917 communist revolution and acquired a forbidding reputation as a center of brutal repression during Stalin’s Great Terror of 1936-38, when its basement cells were used for torture and executions.
In the final years of the Soviet Union, which collapsed at the end of 1991, a square in front of what was then the K.G.B. headquarters became the scene of frequent protests by pro-democracy activists. In August 1991 they tore down a statue of the first secret police chief after the revolution, Felix Dzerzhinsky. Since Mr. Putin came to power nearly 20 years ago, the area around the Lubyanka has been off limit for protests.