The attack perpetrated this Friday by a group of armed men in a concert hall in a shopping center on the outskirts of Moscow, which has caused at least 40 dead and 100 injured, is one of the most serious, by number of victims, of those recorded in Moscow in the last twenty years. The worst terrorist attack suffered by the Russian capital in recent decades occurred on October 23, 2002 when a group of Chechen terrorists attacked the Dubrovka Theater and took about 700 people hostage.

During the rescue operation, on October 26 of that year, 129 hostages died (due to inhalation of a gas used by the Russian Army in the operation) and 41 terrorists (killed by special forces). The list of the most serious attacks in Moscow since 1995 is as follows:

  • September 9, 1999 – 109 dead and more than 200 injured when a bomb exploded in a residential building on Gurianov Street (southeast of Moscow).
  • September 13, 1999 – An explosion in a residential building on Kashirskaya Street, which is completely destroyed, causes at least 124 deaths (13 minors).
  • August 8, 2000 – A bomb in the pedestrian underpass of Pushkinskaya Square causes the death of 13 people and leaves more than 90 injured. The action was officially attributed to a settling of scores between mafias and a Chechen attack (according to the press and political opposition, respectively ).
  • October 23-26, 2002 – Attack on the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow by a group of Chechen terrorists, who take some 700 people hostage: 129 hostages die (due to inhalation of a gas used by the Russian Army in the rescue operation) and 41 terrorists (killed by the Special Forces).
  • July 5, 2003 – 16 dead and 40 injured when two Chechen women are killed during a rock festival at a Moscow airfield.
  • February 6, 2004 – Forty dead and more than 100 injured when a bomb exploded in a Moscow Metro car.
  • August 31, 2004 – Ten dead and more than 50 injured in a suicide attack by the fundamentalist group ‘Al Islambuli Brigades’ perpetrated in a Moscow Metro station.
  • August 21, 2006 – Eleven dead when a bomb explodes in a Moscow market.
  • November 27, 2009 – 27 dead when a bomb exploded on the “Nevsky Express” passenger train that covers the line between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, shortly after its departure from the Russian capital.
  • March 29, 2010 – 39 dead and more than 60 injured in two suicide attacks in the Moscow Metro.
  • January 24, 2011 – A total of 37 people die and more than 200 are injured in a Chechen attack at Domodedovo International Airport (Moscow)