Attack on Moscow Concert Hall Wasn’t Putin’s First During His Rule

The deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall, which resulted in at least 133 deaths, has been claimed by an Islamic State faction in Afghanistan. The attack is amongst the most horrific to take place on Russian soil, amidst a history of bombings and sieges the country has faced during Vladimir Putin’s terms as both prime minister and president. The scale and brutality of the Crocus City Hall attack marks the end of several years of relative calm.

A key event in Russia’s history of violence occurred in September 1999 when four apartment buildings were bombed in Moscow and two other cities, leading to 307 deaths. The responsibility was attributed to militants from the separatist region of Chechnya. However, the blame has been questioned due to the discovery of explosive material in an apartment building in Ryazan, where suspects with links to the Federal Security Service were apprehended.

The following year, around 40 Chechen militants took 850 people hostage during a popular musical at a Moscow theatre. Russian authorities eventually used an unidentified sleeping gas to kill the assailants, leading to the death of 132 hostages – mainly from the effects of the gas. In 2004, the first day of school in the Russian town of Beslan was devastated by an attack from militants directed by Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev. They demanded Russia’s withdrawal from Chechnya. Once the assault had come to a halt, over 330 civilians were dead or fatally wounded, more than half of them children.

Russia’s public transport system has also been a frequent target of attacks. In 2004, a suicide bomber killed 41 people on a Moscow subway train. In March 2010, two separate suicide bombings on Moscow subway trains killed around 40 people. Then in 2013, consecutive suicide bombings in Volgograd targeted a train station and a bus, killing 34 people in total. Most recently, a suicide bombing in 2017 of the St. Petersburg subway led to 15 deaths.

Further incidents have also taken place within Russia’s air transport system. For instance, one week before the Beslan school attack, two airliners were destroyed by suicide bombers, killing all 90 passengers and crew. In 2011, suicide bombers attacked Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, resulting in 37 deaths. Then, in 2015, a bomb deployed on a Russian charter airliner flying home from the Egyptian resort Sharm el-Sheikh resulted in 224 fatalities. This attack was later claimed by a faction of the Islamic State.