Terrorism in Russia has a long history starting from the time of theRussian Empire.Terrorism, in the modern sense,[1] meansviolence against civilians to achieve political orideological objectives by creating extreme fear.[2]
Terrorism was an important tool used byMarxist revolutionaries in the early 20th century to disrupt the social, political, and economic system and enable rebels to bring down the Tsarist government. Terrorist tactics, such ashostage-taking, were widely used by theSoviet secret agencies, most notably during theRed Terror andGreat Terror campaigns, against the population of their own country, according toKarl Kautsky and other historians ofBolshevism[citation needed].
Important ideologists of these groups wereMikhail Bakunin andSergey Nechayev, who was described inFyodor Dostoevsky's novelThe Possessed.[5] Nechayev argued that the purpose ofrevolutionary terror is not to gain the support of the masses, but on the contrary, to inflict misery and fear on the common population. According to Nechayev, a revolutionary must terrorize civilians in order to incite rebellions. He wrote:[5]
"A revolutionary must infiltrate all social formations including the police. He must exploit rich and influential people, subordinating them to himself. He must aggravate the miseries of the common people, so as to exhaust their patience and incite them to rebel. And, finally, he must ally himself with the savage word of the violent criminal, the only true revolutionary in Russia".
"The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion – the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose – to destroy it."
According to historian and writerEdvard Radzinsky, Nechayev's ideas and tactics were widely used byJoseph Stalin and other Russian revolutionaries.[5]
TheSR Combat Organization was founded in 1902 and operated as an autonomous branch of theSocialist Revolutionary Party responsible for assassinating government officials, was led byGrigory Gershuni and operated separately from the party so as not to jeopardize its political actions. SRCO agents assassinated two Ministers of the Interior,Dmitry Sipyagin andV. K. von Plehve,Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, the Governor ofUfa N. M. Bogdanovich, and many other high-ranking officials.[6] It has been estimated that all together in the last twenty years of the Tsarist regime (1897–1917) more than 17,000 people were killed or wounded in terror attacks.[7]
A series of three bombings inMoscow on 8 January 1977 killed seven people and seriously injured 37 others. No one claimed responsibility for the bombings, although three members of anArmeniannationalist organization wereexecuted early in 1979 after aKGB investigation and a secret trial. SomeSoviet dissidents said that the bombings were allegedly organized by KGB to frame-up Armenian nationalists who were executed.[8][9][10][11]
The bombings were followed by a controversial episode when a suspected bomb was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city ofRyazan on 22 September, which was then explained to be an exercise by the Russian security services, the FSB.[15]
An official investigation of the bombings was completed only three years later, in 2002. Seven suspects were killed, six have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, and one remains a fugitive. According to the investigation, the Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings were organized and led byAchemez Gochiyaev, who headed a group of Karachai Wahhabis, while the Buinaksk bombing was organized and perpetrated by a different group of Dagestani Wahhabis.[16]
The RussianDuma rejected two motions for parliamentary investigation of the Ryazan incident. An independent public commission to investigate the bombings chaired by Duma deputySergei Kovalev was rendered ineffective because of government refusal to respond to its inquiries. Two key members of the Kovalev Commission,Sergei Yushenkov andYuri Shchekochikhin, both Duma members, have since died in assassinations in April 2003 and July 2003 respectively. The commission's lawyerMikhail Trepashkin was arrested in October 2003 to become one of the better-known political prisoners in Russia.[17][18][19]
TheMoscow theater hostage crisis (also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege) was the seizure of a crowded Dubrovka Theater by 40 to 50 armed Chechens on 23 October 2002 that involved 850 hostages and ended with the deaths of at least 170 people.
Simultaneoussuicide bombings brought down two passenger aircraft within one hour of leaving from the Domedodovo airport, Moscow, killing 90 people total on 24 August.
Chechen terrorists seized over 1,000 hostages at aschool in Beslan, North Ossetia on 1 September. The siege ended on 3 September, with more than 300 people dead, most of them children.
In March 2010 suicide bombings were carried out by two women who were aligned withCaucasus Emirate andAl-Qaeda. The terrorist attack happened during the morning rush hour of 29 March 2010, at two stations of the Moscow Metro (Lubyanka andPark Kultury), with roughly 40 minutes interval between. At least 38 people were killed, and over 60 injured.[22][23]
The bombing killed 37 people[24] and injured 173 others, including 86 who had to be hospitalised.[25] Of the casualties, 31 died at the scene, three later in hospitals, one en route to a hospital,[26] one on 2 February after having been put in a coma, and another on 24 February after being hospitalised in grave condition.[24]
Russia'sFederal Investigative Committee later identified the suicide bomber as a 20-year-old from the North Caucasus, and said that the attack was aimed "first and foremost" at foreign citizens.[27]
In December 2013, two separate suicide bombings a day apart targeted mass transportation in the city of Volgograd, in the Volgograd Oblast of Southern Russia, killing 34 people overall, including both perpetrators who were aligned toCaucasus Emirate andVilayat Dagestan. The attacks followed a bus bombing carried out in the same city two months earlier.[28][citation needed]
On 21 October 2013, a suicide bombing took place on a bus in the city ofVolgograd, in theVolgograd Oblast ofSouthern Russia. The attack was carried out by a female perpetrator named Naida Sirazhudinovna Asiyalova (Russian: Наида Сиражудиновна Асиялова) who was converted to Islam by her husband, she detonated an explosive belt containing 500–600 grams of TNT inside a bus carrying approximately 50 people, killing seven civilians and injuring at least 36 others.[29]
On 5 October 2014 a 19-year-old man named Opti Mudarov went to the town hall where an event was taking place to mark Grozny City Day celebrations inGrozny coinciding with the birthday ofChechen PresidentRamzan Kadyrov. Police officers noticed him acting strangely and stopped him. The officers began to search him and the bomb which Mudarov had been carrying exploded. Five officers, along with the suicide bomber, were killed, while 12 others were wounded.[30]
On 4 December 2014, a group of Islamist militants, in three vehicles, killed three traffic policemen, after the latter had attempted to stop them at a checkpoint in the outskirts ofGrozny.[31] The militants then occupied a press building and an abandoned school, located in the center of the city. Launching acounter-terrorism operation, security forces, with the use of armored vehicles, attempted to storm the buildings and a firefight ensued.[32]
14 policemen, 11 militants and 1 civilian were killed. Additionally 36 policemen were wounded in the incident. The Press House was also burned and severely damaged in the incident.[33][34]
Metrojet Flight 9268 was an international chartered passenger flight operated by Russian airlineKogalymavia (branded as Metrojet). On 31 October 2015 at 06:13 local time EST (04:13 UTC), an Airbus A321-231 operating the flight disintegrated above the northern Sinai following its departure from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport, Egypt, in route to Pulkovo Airport, Saint Petersburg, Russia. All 217 passengers and seven crew members who were on board were killed.[35][36][37]
By 4 November 2015, British and American authorities suspected that a bomb was responsible for the crash. On 8 November 2015, an anonymous member of the Egyptian investigation team said the investigators were "90 percent sure" that the jet was brought down by a bomb. Lead investigator Ayman al-Muqaddam said that other possible causes of the crash included afuelexplosion,metal fatigue, andlithium batteries overheating.[42] The RussianFederal Security Service announced on 17 November that they were sure that it was a terrorist attack, caused by animprovised bomb containing theequivalent of up to 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) ofTNT that detonated during the flight. The Russians said they had found explosive residue as evidence. On 24 February 2016,Egyptian PresidentAbdel Fattah el-Sisi acknowledged that terrorism caused the crash.[43]
On 3 April 2017, aterrorist attack using anexplosive device took place on theSaint Petersburg Metro betweenSennaya Ploshchad andTekhnologichesky Institut stations.[44] Seven people (including the perpetrator) were initially reported to have died, and eight more died later from their injuries, bringing the total to 15.[45][46][47][48][49] At least 45 others were injured in the incident.[50][51] The explosive device was contained in a briefcase.[50] A second explosive device was found and defused atPloshchad Vosstaniya metro station.[48] The suspected perpetrator was named as Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Russian citizen who was an ethnicUzbek born inKyrgyzstan.[52] Prior to the attack,Chechen separatists had been responsible for several terrorist attacks in Russia. In 2016,ISIS had plotted to target St. Petersburg due to Russia's military involvement in Syria, resulting in arrests.[53] No public transport system in Russia had been bombed since the2010 Moscow Metro bombings.[54]ISIS propaganda was being circulated prior to this incident. It encouraged supporters to launch strikes on Moscow. ISIS propaganda showed bullet holes through Putin's head and a poster circulated before the attack of a fallingKremlin and included the message "We Will Burn Russia."[55]
On 22 April 2017, two people were shot and killed in an attack in a Federal Security Service office in the Russian city of Khabarovsk. The gunman was also killed. The Russian Federal Security Service said that the native 18-year-old perpetrator was a known member of a neo-Nazi group.[56]
On 27 December 2017 a bomb exploded in a supermarket in St Petersburg, injuring thirteen people. Vladimir Putin described this as a terrorist attack.[57]
Several terrorist incidents occurred in Russia during the year of 2019:
On 13 March, two perpetrators attackedFederal Security Service (FSB) officers withautomatic weapons andgrenades when stopped for questioning inStavropol of theShpakovsky district. Both perpetrators were killed in the confrontation. Later, Russian authorities reported they were planning a terrorist attack in accordance to their affiliation with ISIS.[58]
On 8 April, ISIS (claimed to have) set off an explosion at Kolomna, a city near Moscow. The attack did not result in any casualties.[58]
On 1 July, ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a police officer at a checkpoint in the Achkhoy-Martonovsky district of Chechnya, who was stabbed to death. The attacker was shot and killed as he threw a grenade at the other officers.[58]
On 19 December, someone living in the Moscow region opened fire near the FSB headquarters in Moscow and caused 6 casualties; 2 killed and 4 wounded. Subsequently, the shooter, later identified as Yevgeny Manyurov, a 39-year-old ex-security guard, was killed onsite.[58]
A German court sentenced Russian agent Vadim Krasikov to life imprisonment for the murder ofZelimkhan Khangoshvili which the judge called "state terrorism".[59]
On August 20, 2022, acar bomb was detonated outside Moscow, killing Russian journalist Darya Dugina, who is also the daughter of far-right philosopherAleksandr Dugin. The FSB claims the attack was an act of terrorism involvingUkraine[60], with the suspect fleeing toEstonia[60]. Reports ofUnited States intelligence suspects Ukraine of being behind the attack.[61]The Ukrainian government denied any involvement, with Ukrainian presidential advisorMykhailo Podolyak stating that "we are not a criminal state like the Russian Federation, much less a terrorist one".[62]
On 22 March, a group of four gunmen fromIS-KP, also known asISIS–K, opened fire on the public and then set fire to theCrocus City Hall music venue inKrasnogorsk, a city on the Western edge ofMoscow.[63] ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack.[64][65]
On 23 June 2024,Telegram channel Baza reported a terrorist attack in the city ofDerbent on the Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin on Lenin Street.[66] Not long after, a similar attack occurred in the regional capitalMakhachkala. TheHead of the Republic of Dagestan,Sergei Melikov, confirmed that the attacks had indeed took place.[67]
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the government of the Russian Federation has been frequently accused of sponsoring or inspiring terrorist activities inside the country and in other countries in order to achieve its political goals.
In May 2016,Reuters published a Special Report titled "How Russia allowed homegrown radicals to go and fight in Syria" that, based on first-hand evidence, said that at least in the period between 2012 and 2014 the Russian government agencies ran a programme to facilitate and encourage Russian radicals and militants to leave Russia and go to Turkey and then on toSyria; the persons in question had joined jihadist groups, some fighting with theISIL. According to the report, the goal has been to eradicate the risk of Islamic terrorism at home; however Russian security officials deny that terrorists were encouraged to leave Russia.[81]
Investigation and prosecution of alleged terrorism
Russian authorities routinely extort confessions from suspected terrorists using torture, instead of engaging in genuine investigative efforts.[82] According toVyacheslav Izmailov, the terrorist kidnappings of journalists and members of international NGOs in 2005 in Chechnya, along withAndrei Babitsky fromRadio Free Europe,Arjan Erkel and Kenneth Glack fromDoctors Without Borders were organized by FSB agents.[83]
Investigative journalistYulia Latynina has accused the Russian security services of staging fake terrorist attacks to report false successes in solving those cases, instead of investigating the actual terrorist attacks.[84]
Russia reportedly abuses its anti-terrorism and anti-extremism laws.[85] On 10 February 2020, seven Russian anarchists and anti-fascist activists were sentenced to six to eighteen years in prison, based on fabricated terrorism charges. The activist were accused to be members of "The Set" an alleged terrorist organization fromPenza that aimed to "overthrow the Russian government".[86][87]
^Humphreys, Adrian (17 January 2006)."One official's 'refugee' is another's 'terrorist'".National Post. p. 1. Archived fromthe original on 27 February 2011. Retrieved11 October 2007.The divergent assessments of the same evidence on such an important issue shocks a leading terrorism researcher. 'The notion of terrorism is fairly straightforward – it is ideologically or politically motivated violence directed against civilian targets.'" said Professor Martin Rudner, director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at Ottawa's Carleton University.
^Terrorism and CommunismArchived 15 July 2018 at theWayback Machine byKarl Kautsky. Kautsky said: "It is, in fact, a widely spread idea thatTerrorism belongs to the very essence ofrevolution, and that whoever wants a revolution must somehow come to some sort of terms with terrorism. As proof of this assertion, over and over again the great French Revolution has been cited." (Chapter 1)
^Anna Geifman. Entangled in Terror: The Azef Affair and the Russian Revolution, Wilmington, Scholarly Resources Inc., 2000, 247 pp.ISBN0-8420-2651-7ISBN0-8420-2650-9
^Figes, Orlando (1996).A People's Tragedy: The Russian revolution, 1891–1924. New York: Penguin. p. 138.ISBN0-14-024364-X.
^Andrew, Christopher M., Oleg Gordievsky. KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev. HarperCollinsPublishers; 1st edition (1 May 1992).ISBN0-06-016605-3. p. 546.
^M. Heller andA. Nekrich,History of Russia 1917–1995; seven volumes; London, 1982,ISBN5-87902-004-5Russian text onlineArchived 24 July 2020 at theWayback Machine, Quote (Russian): "армянские националисты были приговорены к смертной казни закрытым судом и несмотря на то, что алиби обвиняемых было подтверждено многими свидетелями." (Armenian nationalists were to death in a closed trial, and despite the fact that the alibi of the accused was confirmed by many witnesses)
^Youngman, Mark (6 April 2017)."Russia's domestic terrorism threat is serious, sophisticated and complex".The Conversation. The Conversation Trust (UK).Archived from the original on 9 April 2017. Retrieved9 April 2017.The April 3 bombing on the St Petersburg metro was the highest-profile terror attack on Russian soil since a suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport in January 2011.
^"Число жертв теракта в Петербурге выросло до 14 человек" [Number of fatalities of the terrorist act in Petersburg has grown to fourteen people].Meduza. 4 April 2017.Archived from the original on 30 April 2017. Retrieved4 April 2017.В результате взрыва в метро Санкт-Петербурга погибли 14 человек, сообщила министр здравоохранения России Вероника Скворцова. [In the aftermath of explosion in the metro of Saint Petersburg 14 people have died, reported by the minister of health of Russia Veronika Skvortsova]
^Bowker, Mike (2005). "Western Views of the Chechen Conflict". In Richard Sakwa (ed.).Chechnya: From Past to Future (1st ed.). London: Anthem Press. pp. 223–238.ISBN978-1-84331-164-5.
^Amy Knight (22 November 2012)."Finally, We Know About the Moscow Bombings".The New York Review of Books.Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved2 January 2020.The evidence provided in The Moscow Bombings makes it abundantly clear that the FSB of the Russian Republic, headed by Patrushev, was responsible for carrying out the attacks.
^М. Трепашкин: "Создана очень серьезная группа" [M. Trepashkin: "A very serious group has been created"].Wayback Machine (in Russian). Chechen Press State News Agency. 1 December 2006. Archived from the original on 5 February 2007. Retrieved10 June 2021.
^Izmailov, Vyacheslav (7 November 2005)."Рынок взорвали фотороботы" [The market was blown up by photo robots] (in Russian). Archived fromthe original on 8 May 2006.
