Deadly attacks on churches and synagogues in southern Russia

Twenty people and five armed men were killed in attacks on police stations, churches and a synagogue in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.

At least 46 people were hospitalized with injuries following the attack on Sunday evening.

Three days of national mourning have been declared in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in southern Russia bordering Chechnya.

The apparently coordinated attacks were directed against the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala on the Orthodox Pentecost; an Orthodox priest was among those killed.

He was later identified by the head of the Republic of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, as Father Nikolai Kotelnikov, who had served in Derbent for over 40 years.

In a series of attacks on Sunday evening, gunmen raided a church and a synagogue in Derbent, home to an ancient Jewish community.

In Dagestan’s largest city, Makhachkala, a church and a police post near a synagogue were attacked.

Footage posted on social media shows people in dark clothing shooting at police cars in Makhachkala before a convoy of emergency vehicles arrives at the scene.

Dagestan has been the scene of Islamist attacks in the past.

Although the attackers have not yet been officially identified, Russian media reported extensively that among the shooters were two sons of Sergokala district head Magomed Omarov, who was detained by police.

However, in a video posted on Telegram, Mr Melikov suggested that Ukraine was involved in the attack and that Dagestan was now directly involved in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“The war is coming into our homes,” said Mr Melikov.

“We know who is behind the organisation of the terrorist attacks and what their aim was,” he said.

On Monday, Melikov said authorities were continuing to search for members of “sleeper cells” who had prepared the attacks, including with support from abroad.

The chairman of the Russian State Duma’s international affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, made similar claims, saying the attacks in Dagestan and a rocket attack that killed four people in Russian-occupied Sevastopol on Sunday “could not be a coincidence.”

“I am convinced that these tragic events were staged from abroad and are aimed at spreading panic and dividing the Russian people,” Slutski said.

But Dmitry Rogozin, a leading Russian nationalist in occupied Ukraine, warned that if every attack was blamed on the “machinations of Ukraine and NATO, this pink fog would cause us big problems.”

An attack on the venue Crocus City Hall Russian authorities blamed Ukraine and the West for the attack near Moscow in March, in which 147 people were killed, although the terrorist group “Islamic State” (IS) claimed responsibility.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to those who lost loved ones in the attacks in Crimea and Dagestan.

Russian news agencies reported on Monday morning that the anti-terror operation initiated after the attacks had now ended.

Between 2007 and 2017, a jihadist organization called the “Caucasus Emirate” and later the “Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus” carried out attacks in Dagestan and the neighboring Russian republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

After the attack on the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin stressed that “Russia cannot be the target of terrorist attacks by Islamic fundamentalists” because the country represents “a unique example of harmony between religions and of unity between religions and ethnic groups”.

However, three months ago, the Russian domestic intelligence service FSB reported that it had foiled an IS plan to attack a Moscow synagogue.