Russia Marks Day of Solidarity in Fight Against Terrorism

2014/09/03

MOSCOW, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - On Wednesday, Russia will be observing the Day of Solidarity in the Fight against Terrorism, commemorating the victims of terrorist attacks on its territory.


On this day, Russia will remember thousands of its compatriots who fell at the hands of terrorists during the 1995 Budyonnovsk, 2002 Moscow Theater Center and 2004 Beslan school hostage crises, the 1999 bombings of Moscow apartments and hundreds of other terrorist attacks.


The tragic event commemorated in particular on this day is the end of a school siege in the southern Russian city of Beslan in September 2004, in which more than 300 people, mostly women and children, were killed.


The day of remembrance was established by the federal law On Russia’s Days of Military Glory and Memorial Days of March 13, 1995, and amended by Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 22, 2005.


The Day of Solidarity is meant to foster national unity to combat the scourge of terrorism.


The last time Russia suffered a major terrorist attack was in December 2013 in Volgograd, when in less than 24 hours over December 29 and 30, two explosions hit a train station and a trolleybus, taking the lives of 34 and wounding 70 people.


Criminal investigations into the Volgograd terrorist acts was launched immediately and has been successful in identifying the two suicide bombers from the Buynaksk Terrorist Organization, Asker Samedov and Suleiman Magomedov.


In 2013, Russia foiled 82 terrorist plots, including 13 planned attacks and took out 278 militants, including 43 leaders of terrorist groups.


In 2014, the Federal Security Service prevented six terrorist attacks, 38 terrorism-related crimes, killed 130 militants, including 21 high-ranking figures and destroyed 160 bases of criminal groups and weapons caches. These efforts have helped reduce the number of terrorist acts by half compared to 2013.



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