An explosion Saturday at a Moscow restaurant that killed three people and wounded 21 others was a bombing, Russia's national anti-terrorism committee said, the Tass state news agency reported.
"A homemade explosive device blew up at a restaurant in Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow, killing three people," said the committee, quoted by the Tass state news agency.
An unidentified woman who attempted to carry the explosive device into the restaurant died in the blast as did a security guard and a patron, the news agency said.
Ria Novosti reported the woman attempted to smuggle the bomb into the establishment but the security guard refused to let her in before the bomb exploded.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the bomb attack a “brutal terrorist act” on Sunday.
“Yesterday, a brutal terrorist act was committed in Moscow that claimed human lives. The victims are currently in the city’s hospitals, where they are receiving all necessary care,” Sobyanin wrote on social media.
The authorities did not name those killed or injured nor did they say who they thought might have been responsible.
More than four years into a full-scale war with Ukraine, Russia's FSB security service said earlier this year that authorities would step up protection for high-ranking military officials after a series of assassinations and attempted killings it blamed on Kyiv.
Read moreRussian military intel deputy chief wounded in Moscow in apparent assassination attempt
The Kommersant daily newspaper cited its own sources as saying that the bomb had been intended to maim and kill guests who were enjoying themselves on the restaurant's summer terrace outside.
It suggested that the bomb had been set off by someone else remotely and that the woman carrying it may not have known that it was an explosive device.
The restaurant's website said the venue had been closed on Saturday for a private event.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, Reuters)
