Wave of bomb alerts in Russia: mystery lingers

Audio 02:47

By: Daniel Vallot

Since November, Russia has faced a mysterious wave of false bomb threats. Alerts that disrupt the functioning of schools, administrations and businesses.

Publicity

from our correspondent in Moscow,

Every week, thousands of people are evacuated, and hundreds of establishments are targeted. This Monday, February 10, according to the Interfax agency, more than 300 public places were thus inspected because of these bomb warnings as mysterious as disturbing. Schools, metro stations, courts ... and even the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, not far from the Kremlin! As every time since November, the same process is observed: emails are sent to the targeted institutions, indicating the presence of bombs inside the buildings, which leads to either an inspection or an evacuation of the premises. All regions of the country are affected, even if Moscow and Saint Petersburg are particularly targeted.

The blackmail track

As in 2017, during the first wave of false bomb alerts , the most complete mystery surrounds the phenomenon. Officially, no leads have been advanced - and we only know that the authors of the emails used encrypted mailboxes (Startmail and Protonmail). These messaging services were subsequently shut down by the Russian authorities, but the alerts did not stop. A track is all the same evoked by the Russian press: that of a blackmail exercised by the authors of false alerts to recover a sum which would have been stolen from them on the internet, on a bitcoin platform. It is the WEX cryptocurrency platform now closed, on which the equivalent of 400 million euros has disappeared according to the Russian BBC service. The authors of the false alarms would claim the reimbursement of 120 bitcoins (about 1 million euros) from a Russian billionaire, Konstantin Malofeïev, who himself denied any involvement in the case.

"The obtuse silence of the authorities"

To date, the Russian authorities have remained strangely silent: no leads, no motives have been advanced, and the Russian public media carefully avoid covering the case. Faced with this astonishing silence, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta even published an open letter to demand accountability from the head of the security services, the head of the FSB. " The obtuse silence of the security agencies is in flagrant contradiction with the reality which affects millions of Russians ", one can read in particular in this text. The newspaper asks the security services to act quickly to fight against these bomb warnings, even if, he adds in reference to the repression exerted since this summer on the militants of the opposition " it is undoubtedly more difficult than photographing students demonstrating alone. "

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• Terrorism