Two decades after Beslan, Russia faces terrorism of a different kind

Kiev has replaced Islamists as the primary source of terrorist threats years after the worst attack in modern Russian history On September 1, 2004, during celebrations marking the first day of the school year, a group of Islamist terrorists occupied Beslan’s School No.

1 in the Caucasus region of Russia, and captured over 1,100 hostages, including students, their families, and teachers.

After three days of tense negotiations, during which 26 women and children were released, Russian special forces had to storm the building in an emergency operation after explosions were heard inside the school, which had been rigged to detonate by the militants.

The Beslan terrorist attack claimed the lives of 334 people, including 186 children, 17 teachers and school staff, ten FSB officers, and two rescue workers.

Russia spent decades fighting the Islamist threat from the 1990s to late 2010s and refining its prevention mechanisms.

Indeed, President Vladimir Putin was the first to call his US counterpart on September 11, 2001.

Read more ‘We’ll wipe them out in the outhouse’: Russia’s long and bloody fight against terrorism But a new danger has arisen with the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, posed not by suicide bombers but by drones and missiles – sent from the West, striking at night, in a systematic campaign of terror launched by Ukraine that targets Russian civilians.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Ukrainian attacks have killed more than 8,000 civilians and injured almost 20,000 more, according to Rodion Miroshnik, who leads the Russian Foreign Ministry mission tracking Ukrainian war crimes.

At least 266 civilians, including seven children, were killed in Ukrainian attacks in the first 90 days of 2026, and 1,459 others were injured, according to Miroshnik’s estimates.

RT looks back at the deadliest Ukrainian strikes on civilians, which Russia has condemned as terrorist attacks aimed at compensating for the setbacks the Ukrainian military has suffered on the front line, where Russian forces have been on the offensive for months.

Tragedy on New Year’s Eve On December 30, 2023, Ukrainian forces bombarded the Russian city of Belgorod, located around 40 km from the border, using multiple-launch rocket systems.

The shelling targeted a popular city mall that traditionally held festive events on New Year’s Eve.

The strike claimed the lives of 14 people, including two children, and left 108 people, among them 15 children, injured.

Crocus City Hall Read more Milestone verdict issued on Ukraine-backed Moscow massacre The 2024 massacre, second only to the Beslan attack in its tragic scale, saw four armed men opening fire on concertgoers in a music venue that was filling with around 3,000 people ahead of a show by the rock band Picnic.