On October 1, near the railway bridge near the village of Soldatskaya in the Prokhladnensky district of Kabardino-Balkaria, police officers and members of the National Guard shot two men. The Ministry of Internal Affairs did not name them, but stated that they were the first to open fire and were suspected of involvement in serious crimes. At the scene of the shootout, security forces found “a firearm and an object structurally similar to an improvised explosive device.”
On October 2, a message appeared on the FSB website about a joint operation of the FSB, Sledkom, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Russian National Guard, as a result of which “a sabotage and terrorist act on transport infrastructure facilities was prevented.”
The FSB also stated that during a search in the house of one of the shot dead, components and tools for making explosive devices were found, as well as “means of communication containing information confirming criminal intentions.” In addition, an accomplice of the terrorists was detained.
Statements about planned and prevented terrorist attacks in southern Russia are made alarmingly often.
In April, the FSB twice announced the detention of terrorists in the Stavropol Territory. Both allegedly prepared explosions at transport facilities, both acted on instructions from emissaries of the Islamic State, which is recognized as terrorist and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation, and were detained directly while attempting to commit a terrorist attack. The moment of the arrest was captured on video. Later, the FSB reported on preventing a terrorist attack at the military registration and enlistment office in Cherkessk and an explosion of an oil pipeline in the Volgograd region. But now, instead of “Islamists,” the organizers are listed as “Ukrainian nationalists”!
Experts do not rule out that the terrorism cases are falsifications of the Russian special services. On the one hand, the authorities need an ideological justification for the “special operation” in Ukraine, which allegedly protects Russians and neo-Nazis. On the other hand, it is beneficial for the security forces to demonstrate their successes in the fight against terrorism, even if it is fake.
