WATCH: Taxi plows into Moscow crowd, injuring eight people

Authorities identified him as 28-year-old Kyrgyz national Anarbek Chingiz.

He was shown telling police that he had been working for 20 hours and was planning to go home to rest after picking up one more customer.

“I myself do not know what happened,” he said. “I got dazed for a second, stepped on the gas — I wanted to step on the brake.”

The head of Moscow’s health department said three Russians were in satisfactory condition in various hospitals on Sunday. “They will all be released in the coming days,” Alexei Khripun said.

The Mexican embassy said it had been in touch with two female nationals who were treated in hospital on Saturday. Khripun said a Ukrainian citizen had also received minor injuries.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants from poor ex-Soviet republics in central Asia such as Kyrgyzstan come to Moscow to take up low-paid jobs to send money money back home.
Many of them do not have legal permission to work and endure arduous living conditions.

But the region and Russia’s north Caucasus are also home to a variety of extremist organisations with suspected ties to the Islamic State group and other Islamists.

The Moscow police department has opened a criminal case against the driver for road safety violations and ruled out any terror link.

The cabbie tried to flee the scene after two men ran up to his car and tried to drag him out.

CCTV footage showed at least a dozen people chasing after the slight man as he tried to escape down a crowded side street.

“I thought I was going to get killed — simply killed,” said the driver.

“There were so many of them.”

-TimesLIVE