Over the past 15 years 1561 persons suffered in terror acts in Moscow

The explosion at the Moscow Domodedovo Airport on January 24 became the 26th terror act committed in the Russian capital since 1996, and the first one committed in a Moscow international airport. Since 1996, terrorists attacked various crowded places in Moscow: hotels, public transport stations, trade centres, concert halls, transport means and even residential buildings, killing at least 627 persons and injuring 934 ones. At least 10 of these explosions were carried out by suicide bombers. These are the results of calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" based on data from open sources.

2011

The explosion in the international terminal of the Domodedovo Airport occurred at 4:32 p.m. The power of an explosive device was about 7 kilos of TNT (trotyl equivalent). According to the latest data, 35 persons died and 110 more were hospitalized. According to the preliminary version, the bomb was triggered by a stout male, aged 30-40, most likely, of European appearance.

2010

Two explosions in Moscow metro were committed on March 29, 2010. The first one - in the Lubyanka metro station occurred at 7:56 a.m. Moscow time; the second one - at 8:40 a.m. in the Park Kultury metro station. According to the FSB, these acts were committed by two women-resident of Dagestan, a wife and a widow of Dagestani militants; while the responsibility for them was taken by Dokku Umarov, leader of North-Caucasian militants. According to his story, it was an act of revenge for the warfare in Chechnya. In those terror acts of March 2010, 40 persons were lost and more than 130 were injured.

2006

On August 21, 2006, in Moscow, an explosion was triggered at the Cherkizovo Marketplace and took away 14 lives. More than 60 persons more were injured.

2005

On June 12, 2005, in the 153rd kilometre from Moscow the passenger train No. 382 "Grozny-Moscow" was blown up. The locomotive and the first car got derailed, and five more cars were overturned. The blast injured 42 passengers, but there were no casualties.

2004

On February 6, 2004, an explosion happened in the Moscow metro - in the second car of the train in the section between the stations Paveletskaya and Avtozavodskaya. The terror act was committed by a suicide bomber. The bomb was stuffed with nuts and bolts to increase its striking capacity. 41 persons were killed, and 134 passengers more were injured. The investigation named the terrorist - Anzor Izhaev, 21, a resident of Karachay-Cherkessia.

On August 24, 2004, two aircrafts were blown up in the air - a Tu-154 craft "Moscow-Sochi" and a Tu-134 "Moscow-Volgograd", which took off from the Moscow Domodedovo Airport. In both cases female suicide bombers managed to get onboard. 90 persons perished.

On that very day - August 24, 2004 - 4 persons were wounded by an explosion at a bus stop near the Kashirskaya metro station in Moscow; there were no casualties. Like in 2002, some criminal "showdown" was announced as the cause of the explosion, later - it was treated as a terror act.

In the same year another terror act was committed in Moscow. On August 31, 2004, a female suicide bomber blew herself up near the Rizhskaya metro station. Ten persons were killed, and more than 50 - injured. As stated by the investigation, the explosion also killed the direct attacker - Nikolai Kipkeev, a native of Karachay-Cherkessia.

2003

Lives of 16 persons were taken away by explosions of female suicide bombers at the entrance to the Rock Festival "Krylya" (Wings) in Tushino in Moscow on July 5, 2003. About 50 persons more were injured.

A little over a month - on August 10, 2003, - at the restaurant "Imbir" (Ginger) in the centre of Moscow, another female suicide bomber with the so-called "shahid's belt" was detained." When the bomb was de-mined, one person was killed.

Another explosion occurred on December 9, 2003, at the "Natsional" Hotel in central Moscow. 6 persons were killed and 14 more injured.

2002

One person died and eight more were wounded in the explosion in Moscow on October 19, 2002. A passenger car was blown up near the McDonald's restaurant near the Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station in Pokryshkina Street. Initially, redistribution of the market between criminal gangs was considered to be the reason, later it was re-qualified as a terror act.

Four days later, on October 23, 2002, a group of suicide bombers, headed by Movsar Baraev, captured the Theatrical Centre in Dubrovka. At that time, the musical "Nord-Ost" was on there. Over 1000 persons were captured as hostages. Three days later, on October 26, the building was stormed. Over 130 hostages died, the rest of them were released. All the terrorists were killed.

2001

On February 6, 2001, a bomb was triggered in the Belorusskaya-Koltsevaya metro station. The explosion happened during the rush hours - at 6:50 p.m. Moscow time. The bomb was planted under a massive marble bench next to the stop of the first car of the train. There were no casualties; but 9 persons, including two children, received fragmental wounds.

2000

On August 8, 2000, in the rush hour - at about 6:00 p.m. Moscow time - a bomb exploded in the pedestrian underground passage in Pushkinskaya square, where there are entrances to the metro stations Tverskaya and Pushkinskaya. The terror act killed seven persons and injuring 53 more. Many were hurt by glass fragments of windows of trade pavilions, blown out by the explosion.

1999

The year 1999 was marked by a series of resonant terror acts committed in Moscow. The first of them happened on April 26 in the elevator cabin in the "Intourist" Hotel. There were no casualties, but 11 persons suffered.

Four months later, on August 31, a bomb exploded on the third level floor of the "Okhotny Ryad" Shopping Centre in Manege Square. At this time one person was killed, and 40 more were wounded. The explosion, initially announced as a criminal "showdown", later was re-qualified into a terror act.

10 days later - on September 9 - an apartment house in Guryanova Street in Moscow was blow up. In total 109 persons were killed, and over 200 more were injured.

Still four days later, on September 13, an apartment house was blown up in Kashira Highway killing 124 persons, including 13 children.

1998

On January 1, 1998, in the Tretyakovskaya metro station a self-made explosive device was triggered. The blast was of low power; there were no casualties; three injured persons were hospitalized with various wounds.

1996

On June 11, 1996, at about 9:00 p.m. Moscow time, in the section between the Tulskaya and Nagatinskaya stations of the Serpukhov line, an explosion occurred in the end of a car under a passenger seat. It was a case-free bomb with the power of about 500 grams of TNT (trotyl equivalent). As a result of the terror act 4 persons were killed and 12 injured.

On July 11 and 12, 1996, two trolleybuses were successively blown up in the Russian capital - of route No. 12 and of route No. 48. There were no casualties. Eight persons were wounded in the first trolleybus, and 26 persons - in the second one.

The death of 178 persons and injuries caused to at least 895 persons more in 240 explosions and terror acts committed in the territories of the North-Caucasus Federal District (NCFD) and in Moscow in 2010 were among most tragic outcomes of the conflict that keeps glowing in Northern Caucasus.

The first ever terror act committed in Moscow is considered to be the explosion in the Moscow metro back in Soviet times - on January 8, 1977. Between the Izmailovskaya and Pervomaiskaya metro stations an explosion in a car killed adults and children who were returning from the New Year celebration. On the same day two more explosions happened in Moscow. In total, 7 persons were lost and 37 were wounded in these three explosions.

According to the official version of the investigation, the explosions were organized by residents of Yerevan Stepan Zatikyan, Akop Stepanyan and Zaven Bagdasaryan, who had founded, during their study at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute, the underground National United Party of Armenia and call for return of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. All the three were sentenced to death and executed in 1979.

However, already then - in the 1970s - the official version of the investigations into these terror acts, voiced by the Soviet authorities, was doubted by many as objective and truthful. It was argued that the authorities had deliberately linked the bombings to the activities of dissidents, aiming to discredit the latter. Thus, on January 12, 1977, Academician Andrei Sakharov suggested that "the explosion in Moscow metro and tragic human deaths were new and most dangerous provocations in recent years of repressive bodies"; later he openly declared "reasonable grounds to fear that a judicial mistake or a deliberate falsification could have taken place in that case."

When specifying the number of terror act casualties and victims, we made use, as a rule, the official data as published in open sources. However, one should be aware that while initially the authorities were not inclined to diminish the number of victims of terror acts, starting from 2002, the official data on the count of terror act casualties and victims might quite well be understated.