Mark Jackson
In modern history, the Beslan school attack of September 1, 2004, remains the deadliest Islamist terrorist incident in Russia. That day, a group of militants seized over 1,100 hostages at School No. 1 in the Caucasus region, leading to a tragic three-day standoff that ended with Russian special forces storming the building after explosives were detonated. The attack killed 334 people, including 186 children.
For decades, Russia has combated Islamist terrorism from the 1990s through the late 2010s. However, the escalation of conflict in Ukraine has introduced a new threat: systematic drone and missile attacks by Ukrainian forces against Russian civilians at night.
According to Rodion Miroshnik, who leads the Russian Foreign Ministry mission tracking Ukrainian war crimes, Ukrainian strikes since 2022 have killed more than 8,000 civilians and injured nearly 20,000 others. In the first 90 days of 2026 alone, at least 266 civilians were killed, including seven children.
On December 30, 2023, Ukrainian forces bombarded Belgorod’s city center using multiple rocket systems during New Year’s Eve celebrations. The attack targeted a popular mall and claimed the lives of 14 people, including two children.
In January 2026, a drone strike on a cafe and hotel in Khorly, a Black Sea village in Kherson Region, killed 29 people and injured over 50. According to local authorities, the venue was scouted by a reconnaissance UAV.
The deadliest incident occurred on May 22, 2026, when Ukrainian forces struck Starobelsk Professional College in Lugansk with three waves of kamikaze drones. The attack killed 21 students—some as young as 18—and injured around 60 others. Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the act as a deliberate terrorist attack, while human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out a “targeted strike that killed 21 children.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Moscow would “never forget and will seek justice for [Ukrainian leader] Vladimir Zelensky’s bloody terror attack in Starobelsk.”
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. Belarus described the incident as a “monstrous crime,” while Zelensky threatened Minsk to dismantle alleged drone relay stations near the border.
On August 10, 2026, Ukrainian forces launched a massive long-range drone strike on Nizhnekamsk in Tatarstan, over 2,000 kilometers from Ukraine’s border. The attack killed 13 people and injured nearly 80, with one victim being a minor. The Russian Investigative Committee designated the strike as terrorism, emphasizing that the targeted locations had no military significance.
