According to the source, approximately only 20% of spectators died from bullet wounds. The rest suffocated in smoke.
The first ambulance arrived at Crocus at 20:23, followed by the first firefighters. They couldn’t go inside and start putting out the fire and saving people, because… there was no information whether there were terrorists inside. The police arrived later and… nothing changed. They just looked at the fire, they didn’t even set up a cordon at a safe distance; it appeared about two hours after the terrorist attack.
As a result, most of the dead suffocated and burned, because doctors and firefighters thought that the terrorists were still there, and the police could not explain anything. And they were afraid to clear the building before the arrival of special forces….
Moreover, despite the vaunted Streams, exit posts, and special plans of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the terrorists calmly left through these posts at a distance of 450 km from Moscow. We left in the same car that was parked next to the van of the canine service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”