Kazbek Kokov, the head of the Kabardino-Balkaria republic, confirmed that the week-long operation was over, according to a representative of the regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry.

The avalanche came down from Mount Mizhirgi on September 6. At the time, 33 members of a group were on the slope. Ten were able to descend on their own. The rest suffered injuries of varying severity and hypothermia and were taken to hospitals in the region.

It later emerged that the group was made up of Rosgvardiya personnel who had come for ice training and were undergoing high-altitude drills. Telegram channels close to the security services claimed the dead were servicemen of the Vityaz special purpose center. Rosgvardiya denies that the dead served in Vityaz. According to Kommersant's sources, the group was a detachment of fighters from various special units of Russian security agencies.

The group's instructor was Albert Izotov, a climber from St. Petersburg. He had trained military personnel in mountain skills for many years and was 70 years old. Izotov also died, as reported by his wife, Olga. The instructor's body has been taken to St. Petersburg for burial.

Mukhtar Khadzhiyev, a senior researcher at the High Mountain Geophysical Institute, told TASS that the immediate cause of the avalanche was precipitation combined with temperature fluctuations between above-zero readings during the day and below-zero at night. According to him, this "squeezed out" the snow mass. The scientist added that glaciers worldwide are undergoing active degradation because of climate change, and that in the Bezengi gorge a small part of a large glacier collapsed that, in his view, "will make itself felt in the near future." Khadzhiyev warned that "another collapse is being prepared" on Mount Mizhirgi.

Alexander Yakovenko, chairman of the sport climbing committee of the Russian Mountaineering Federation, believes the avalanche could not have been predicted. According to him, no such cataclysms have occurred in the area for decades — such an event may happen once every 50 years.

A criminal case has been opened over the deaths of the group under a negligence article.