The attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow with dozens of victims brings to mind the long trail of attacks that have shocked the Russian Federation. Here is a brief summary of the main episodes of terrorism, in particular of Chechen origin, from 1999 to today.
* 8 SEPT 1999 – During the night a bomb explodes and destroys a nine-storey building in the Piciatniki district, on the outskirts of Moscow. 92 people die, 200 are injured.
* 13 SEP 1999 – A bomb destroys a seven-story building in Moscow, along Kashirskoye Avenue. 118 people die, including 13 children. This attack will not be claimed either, but it will be one of the causes of the Russian intervention in Chechnya. The perpetrators of the two attacks had been trained in Chechen guerrilla camps.
* 8 AUG 2000 – 13 dead and 92 injured in the attack carried out with an explosive device in the underpasses of Pushhin Square, not far from the Kremlin.
* 23-26 OCT 2002 – The bloody episode of the collective kidnapping in the Dubrovka theater in Moscow. The 41 guerrillas of the Chechen commando were killed, but 130 hostages also died, almost all of them poisoned by the gas used by the special police forces.
* 6 FEB 2004 – A bomb, perhaps carried by suicide bombers, explodes on a subway train between the Paveletskaia and Avtozavodskaia stations, close to the center of Moscow: 41 dead and 134 injured. The never-claimed attack is attributed to Chechen fundamentalists.
* 24 AUG 2004 – Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on board two Tupolevs which took off a short distance from each other from Moscow: one crashed in the Tula region causing 43 deaths, the other not far from Rostov-on-Don (46 deaths). Attack claimed by the then Chechen guerrilla leader Shamil Basaev.
* 31 AUG 2004 – A female suicide bomber blows herself up outside the Riskaia station, causing the death of 10 passers-by. Not claimed, this attack is also attributed to the Chechen guerrillas.
* 1/3 SEPTEMBER 2004 – Beslan (North Ossetia, Russia). An Ingush-Chechen commando takes almost 1,200 people hostage, including children, parents and teachers in a kindergarten on the first day of school. The assault by Russian forces will lead to the release of the hostages, but will have a very heavy toll: 335 dead, including 186 children and 31 kidnappers, plus 400 injured.
* 29 MAR 2009 – Two explosions, caused by suicide bombers, occur in the Lubianka stations, where the historic headquarters of the security services, the FSB (the former KGB), and in Park Kulturi, near the legendary Gorki Park, are located: the toll is of 38 dead and thirty injured. The attack was claimed by the Chechen Doku Umarov, head of the North Caucasus guerrilla.
* 24 JAN 2011 – A suicide bomber blows himself up in Domodedovo, one of Moscow's three airports, causing 37 deaths and 117 injuries. The claim is also signed by Umarov.
* 2 APRIL 2017 – Attack on the St. Petersburg subway. The explosion of a bomb inside a carriage causes 14 deaths and 47 injuries. According to the suspects, the attacker is Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Russian citizen of Uzbek ethnicity born in Kyrgyzstan.