A Month of 'Telephone Terrorism'

During the last month, Russia has been the victim of so-called 'telephone terrorism' of massive proportions. A wave of calls and messages with threats about planted bombs rolled throughout the whole country, engulfing cities in 50 regions. Calls came in numerous and regular quantity, reaching more than 100 in one day in some cases, like on October 6 in Moscow, for example. Threats were aimed at locations where large crowds of people congregate, such as airports, train stations, shopping malls, universities, schools and even kindergartens.

After numerous evacuations of people inside the targets of the hoax calls, not one of the bomb threats have turned out to be genuine. Investigations are ongoing, but according to Russian law enforcement information, four people with Russian citizenship located abroad were involved in making the calls. While official figures are still hard to come by, our infographic pulls together some key numbers as reported by media outlets to summarize the events so far.

This infographic was originally made in Russian as part of our International Series. You can find it here.