Moscow: a minor is arrested over the Tsaritsyno threat, and the FSB thanks the US for the information

The threat of an attack on Moscow’s Tsaritsyno museum-park, about which the United States warned, has led to an arrest. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Sunday, November 1 that a Russian minor is in custody, and thanked the American side for the information.

TikTok photos captioned “I found a place”

The FSB announcement says that the service, together with Rosgvardia, the Interior Ministry and the Investigative Committee, checked the information provided by American law-enforcement authorities about preparations for a terrorist act at the museum site. For the safety of citizens, the cultural events scheduled there were cancelled and security in the area was reinforced.

The minor who was arrested had posted on TikTok photos of himself in tactical-style clothing, a balaclava, a cap, glasses and headphones, holding an object resembling an automatic weapon. He had also posted photos from Tsaritsyno with the English caption “I found a place”. His home yielded the clothes and accessories seen in the photos. On his devices were found a TikTok account from which threats were posted, a subscription to a neo-Nazi Telegram channel and a significant number of searches for terrorist attacks that have been carried out, mass killings and other acts of violence. The Main Investigation Directorate of the Investigative Committee for Moscow is taking a procedural decision. “We are grateful to the American side for the information it provided,” the announcement concludes.

The embassy’s warning

On Saturday, October 31 the US embassy in Moscow had issued an urgent security alert about a “credible threat of an incident with mass casualties” the same day at Tsaritsyno, on Dolskaya Street 1. It said the American government was coordinating with the competent Russian authorities and advised everyone to avoid the area. Later that day the FSB confirmed that it had received from the American side, through cooperation channels, information on preparations for a terrorist act in Moscow.

The site was evacuated the same Saturday while a concert by the musician Lilia Petsenkina was under way. “While I was playing the last piece of the programme, an announcement about an evacuation was heard over the loudspeakers,” she told the outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti!, as cited by the Moscow Times.

The precedent of Crocus

A similar US warning had preceded, in March 2024, an imminent terrorist attack, before the attack on Crocus City Hall that left 145 dead and hundreds injured. Then the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, had called the American information “excessively general”.