Moscow mystery: up to 1000 bomb hoaxes a day in Russia’s capital
- Bomb hoaxes sent to organisations and companies to arrive through encrypted email, making them difficult to trace
- Authorities and Kremlin-controlled TV channels stay mostly clear of the topic
Muscovites are mystified by a flood of bomb hoaxes forcing the evacuation of courts, schools and malls while authorities appear unable to find the culprits even after months of disruption to public life.
The warnings of planted bombs, all of them false, have been sent to numerous Russian cities, but particularly targeted the capital, where around 16 million live and work, with up to 1,000 threats per day.
Since late November, more than 1.6 million people have been evacuated from buildings in Moscow, the Interfax news agency said citing sources.
Yet, both the authorities and Kremlin-controlled television channels stay mostly clear of the topic.
Yulia Olshanskaya, a local government official, said her daughter Maria’s school was evacuated “sometimes several times a day” throughout December.
“We can’t keep count of how many times it’s happened,” she said.