St Petersburg metro explosions kill ten

At least 10 people have been killed in explosions at underground stations in St Petersburg, Russian media report.

News agencies reported the blasts hit the Sennaya Ploschad and nearby Tekhnologichesky Institut stations in the centre of the city.

Images posted on social media showed a carriage in Sennaya station with its doors blown out with casualties nearby.

President Vladimir Putin said all causes, including terrorism, were being investigated.

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The Interfax and RIA news agencies reported that at least 50 people had been injured. Interfax said one of the blasts may have involved a device filled with shrapnel.

President Putin was in St Petersburg earlier on Monday but is now outside the city, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"I have already spoken to the head of our special services, they are working to ascertain the cause," he said, at a meeting with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

Moscow metro officials said they were introducing extra security measures as a result.

Tekhnologichesky Institut serves metro lines one and two, with the first hall opening in 1955, followed by the second in 1961.

Sennaya Ploschad - the next station along metro line two - opened two years later, in 1963.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39481770
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Explosion rocks St. Petersburg metro
Several stations closed, evacuation underway, say authorities in northern Russian city.

An explosion on a subway train in the Russian city of St. Petersburg killed 10 people on Monday afternoon, according to the Tass and Interfax news agencies.

The subway's administration said several stations in the northern city have been closed and that an evacuation was underway.

Social media users posted photographs from one subway station in the city centre that show people lying on the floor and a train with a mangled door nearby.

Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Russian President Vladimir Putin has been informed about the explosion. Putin is visiting the city Monday and is expected to hold talks with the president of Belarus later in the day.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear.

Putin offered his condolences to the victims' families.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/blast-st-petersburg-russia-metro-1.4052476

https://www.rt.com/news/383202-st-petersburg-blast-metro/



Horrible - poor people. If, as seems likely, it's terrorism, I'd lay odds Chechens are involved.

https://www.rt.com/news/383206-blast-metro-petersburg-russia/

14:21 GMT
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has ordered security to be stepped up in the Moscow Metro, the Moscow Central Ring and intercity trains, the Moscow Transport service tweeted. Three trains of the Moscow Central Ring have been evacuated after an unidentified object was located. Experts are currently investigating, a source told RIA Novosti.

14:22 GMT
A self-made explosive device has been defused at another St. Petersburg Metro station – Ploshchad Vosstaniya, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said.

Yes, it's a terrorist attack.

https://youtu.be/PM4hiichCXs

CCTV footage.

It seems Putin was in St Petersburg today for a meeting with the Bellorussian leader. He was born there when it was called Leningrad. I have been there, it's a lovely place, quite like Vienna, full of beautiful buildings and history. LL

Some friends of mine went there on a cruise last year, LL, and adored it - as you say, St Petersburg is beautiful, especially considering everything the city has been through.

I didn't realise it was Putin's home town; I suspect the perpetrators of this atrocity won't want to be captured alive....

Old Holborn✘‏ @Holbornlolz 3h3 hours ago
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First pics of St Petersburg bomber



Doesn't look Amish or Presbyterian to me - looks like it's the Religion of Peace yet again.

St Petersburg attack: Kyrgyz suicide bomber believed to be behind metro blast that killed 11.

Russian security services say a suicide bomber from Kyrgyzstan was behind the explosion that killed 11 people and injured dozens more in the Saint Petersburg metro.

"The suicide bomber in the Saint Petersburg metro was a Kyrgyz national Akbarjon Djalilov... born in 1995," a spokesman for the country's security services said.

Authorities shut down the metro system in Russia's second largest city for several hours after the attack, as security services said they had also defused a bomb at a second metro station.

Russia's Investigative Committee said it was probing an "act of terror" but added it would look into all other possible causes of the blast.    More at link.

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/04/03/22/16/casualties-reported-after-an-explosion-in-a-st-peterburg-metro-station

Oh, Kyrghistan, the one place that's possibly worse than Chechnya.

This is disgusting hypocrisy:

https://www.rt.com/viral/383372-petersburg-metro-attack-solidarity-flag/


‘Only in exceptional cases’: Europe lights up no landmarks for victims of St. Petersburg bombing

Eleven were killed and 51 injured in a suspected suicide bomb blast inside a train in the St. Petersburg Metro, but you won’t see the expression of solidarity in European cities often displayed when other nations suffer similar heinous attacks.
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St. Petersburg Metro blast
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That fact was not lost on the curious few who took to Twitter to question if Paris, Berlin, London or other Western capitals would be granting the victims of Russia the same acknowledgement given to so many in the wake of several terrorist attacks...etc.

I take it European leaders value dead Russians less than other people? Shameful.

Germany’s Brandenburg Gate has a history of showing solidarity with nations after similar attacks in Paris, Brussels, London, Orlando, Istanbul, Nice and Jerusalem, according to Berliner-Zeitung, but a senate speaker from the German press agency said the landmark would not radiate the Russian national colours because St. Petersburg is not a partner city of Berlin, and “exceptions should only be made in exceptional cases.”

Israel, however, did express its condolences and solidarity with the victims of the attack by lighting up city hall in Tel Aviv with the colours of the Russian flag.



Mayor of Tel Aviv‏Verified account @MayorOfTelAviv 14h14 hours ago
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In solidarity with our friends in #SaintPetersburg, #TelAviv city hall is lit tonight in the colors of the #Russian flag



Well done, Tel Aviv.

Errr, they are showing it upside down!!    LL

Ah, I thought it looked a bit odd - never mind, in this case, it's the thought that counts.

A blast inside a train on the St. Petersburg subway claimed 14 lives and injured dozens. The Investigative Committee said in a statement on Tuesday that they suspect that a man whose body fragments they found in the train was a suicide bomber. The committee said they identified him but would not release the details in the interests of the probe.

Earlier, Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security identified a suspect as Kyrgyz-born Russian Akbarzhon Dzhalilov. It is unclear whether the Russian and Kyrgyz statements referred to the same man.

I had to look up Kyrgistan, as I know little or nothing about it, beyond that's where Poulton's jailbird boyfriend lost his Lottery winnings....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyrgyzstan

It looks very beautiful, in a rugged sort of way, but politically a madhouse, with fundamentalist islam steadily gaining ground.