More than 10,000 people were evacuated from shopping malls and stores across the Russian capital of Moscow due to apparent bomb threats, witnesses and news agencies report. A threat was also been made against a government building.
The evacuations began on early Thursday evening after bomb threats were anonymously phoned in, according to the TASS news agency, which cited law enforcement sources. Footage from the capital showed customers being evacuated from stores.
Locations in Moscow that were evacuated include the GUM department store near Red Square, the Gagarinskiy shopping mall near metro station Leninsky Prospekt, all nine Auchan retail stores, as well as the Kuntsevo Plaza shopping mall and the EuroPark mall in western Moscow.
A threat was also made against the buildings of the Presidential Administration of Russia, which are located on Ilyinka street in downtown Moscow, but it was not immediately clear if the buildings had been evacuated.
The exact nature and credibility of the threat was not immediately known, and Russian authorities have yet to comment on the situation.
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