On Friday, September 4, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev held a meeting in Tula with the leaders of the regions of the Central Federal District. During the meeting, the participants discussed security issues in this region, and also paid attention to the problems of anti-terrorist protection of crowded places.

So, Patrushev said that from January to August 2019, law enforcement officials prevented five terrorist crimes, including four terrorist acts that the criminals planned to organize in Tula, Vladimir, Tambov and Voronezh.

“152 persons involved in terrorist activities were detained,” Patrushev added.

Along with this, the Security Council Secretary noted that the number of crimes committed by migrants remains “significant”. In addition, he expressed concern about the increasing involvement of migrants in terrorist activities.

“Against this background, expansion into Russian territory through the migration of conspiratorial cells of international extremist and terrorist organizations is of particular danger,” Patrushev said.

In this regard, he called on special services and regional leaders not to reduce the intensity of work on the “decriminalization of the migration sphere”.

The head of the Security Council also called on regional authorities at different levels and owners of places of mass stay of people to eliminate the shortcomings of the anti-terrorist protection of these facilities.

“In the first half of this year, almost 13 thousand violations of the requirements of anti-terrorism protection were detected,” the Secretary of the Security Council explained.

  • Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev
  • © Alexey Kudenko / RIA Novosti

According to him, in the Central Federal District 11% of places of mass stay of people could not pass the appropriate examination and categorization, while 22% do not have safety data sheets. The worst situation in this area is recorded in the Tver, Lipetsk, Vladimir and Kaluga regions.

In addition, about 300 educational institutions in the Vladimir and Ryazan regions are not provided with protection, while in many organizations of the social sphere of Voronezh and Kostroma. In the Lipetsk, Smolensk, Tver, Tula and Yaroslavl regions, the level of training of employees for actions in case of a terrorist attack remains low.

“Modern information and communication technologies are not used everywhere, requirements for equipment with engineering and technical equipment are not fully respected, facts of the absence of warning and evacuation control systems at the facilities are noted,” Patrushev emphasized.

Counterterrorism

In September, the Police of Russia magazine, the official publication of Russian law enforcement authorities, published an article by Police Major-General Oleg Ilinykh, head of the Main Directorate for Combating Extremism of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, entitled "Avoid hatred and enmity."

The material says that in 2019, law enforcement officers, together with the FSB, identified the secret cells of the Islamic State terrorist organization * in 17 regions of the country.

In total, for the first half of the year, 972 crimes of a terrorist nature were detected, which is 10% lower than the figures for the same period of 2018. In addition, in the first six months of 2019, 14 facts of “organization of an extremist community” and 90 cases of the activity of such groups were revealed.

One of the latest actions by Russian law enforcement agencies to suppress terrorist activities was operations in Kabardino-Balkaria and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.

In Kabarda's Chegem, FSB and MVD officers liquidated two militants who intended to carry out terrorist attacks on the territory of the republic. During a search in their home, a homemade explosive device, machine guns and ammunition was discovered. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under several articles.

At the same time, in Nizhnevartovsk, fighters of the SOBR of the Rosgvard guard department in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug-Yugra detained three members of the current IS cell. They conducted "prohibited activities aimed at indoctrinating and inducing citizens to participate in the activities of a terrorist organization, financing terrorism, promoting ideology and justifying terrorism."

Extremist literature, images with texts of extremist content, as well as ammunition, symbols and the flag of a terrorist organization were found among detainees during the search.