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Mourners at the site of the 2010 Moscow subway attack

Photo: Konstantin Zavrazhin / Getty Images

The attackers came right before the concert started. The rock group Piknik was actually supposed to perform at the sold-out Crocus City Hall near Moscow on Friday evening. But videos show how at least four armed men entered the hall and apparently shot civilians indiscriminately. They set off incendiary devices in the building and explosions could be heard.

The day after, it became clear that at least 133 people were dead. The number of victims will probably continue to rise. It is the worst attack in Russia in many years (read more about the background and the suspected perpetrators here).

The terror in Crocus City Hall may have reminded many Russians of other bloody attacks. There have been a number of deadly explosions and bombings in the country in recent decades, with the Russian government often blaming Chechen separatists. The attackers' particular focus is Moscow.

An (incomplete) chronicle of terror.

1999: Bomb attacks on Moscow apartment buildings

On September 13th, an explosive device exploded in a Moscow high-rise building. The attack killed 118 people and was part of a series of explosions in Moscow and two other cities for which Vladimir Putin blamed Chechen separatists. To this day, however, there are also theories that suspect Russian secret services were behind the explosion. Putin is using the attacks to launch a bloody campaign in the Caucasus and to consolidate his rule.

2002: Hostage-taking in the Moscow Theater

In October 2022, Chechen rebels broke into the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow and took more than 800 hostages. Security forces surround the theater. Two days later, they piped gas into the building to incapacitate the attackers. Access fails. More than 100 hostages die, many of them suffocating from the gas.

2003: Attack on a rock festival in Moscow

Two suicide bombers blow themselves up at the entrance to the popular Krylya festival in northern Moscow. They drag 13 more people to their deaths. The organizers are letting the concert continue for now to avoid mass panic.

2004: Explosion in the Moscow subway

In February 2004, a previously unknown Chechen splinter group detonated a bomb in the subway. 41 people die and 250 are injured. The subway was full on the morning of the attack.

2004: Beslan bloodbath

In the North Ossetian city of Beslan, Islamist terrorists take control of more than 1,000 teachers, students and parents on the first day of school. They barricade themselves in a gymnasium and engage in firefights with Russian security forces; the situation is chaotic. Russian units used tanks, among other things, and stormed the gymnasium on the third day of the hostage-taking. More than 350 hostages die, including many children. The European Court of Human Rights later condemned the Russian state for its disproportionately harsh actions.

2010: Another attack on the Moscow subway

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in two Moscow subway stations on the morning of March 29th. One of the explosions occurs near the FSB headquarters. 40 people die. A Chechen rebel leader claims responsibility for the attack.

2011: Moscow airport bombing

In January 2011, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow. 37 more people are killed. An Islamist terrorist group from the North Caucasus has again claimed responsibility.

2013: Series of attacks in Volgograd

In the fall and winter of 2013, shortly before the Olympic Games, suicide bombers attacked two buses and a train station in the Russian metropolis, killing more than 40 people. The authorities in turn blamed Islamists from the North Caucasus.

2017: Explosion in Saint Petersburg

In spring 2017 it will hit the Saint Petersburg subway. The attacker, an Islamist from Kyrgyzstan, blew himself up on one of the trains; a bomb he had previously planted was defused in time. In addition to the assassin, 15 other people died.

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