A Bomb Threat TASS Can’t Ignore: Callers Say They’ve Put Explosives in Lenin’s Mausoleum

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 9 – There have been hundreds of anonymous bomb threats across the Russian Federation over the past two years, with several million people having been forced to evacuate; but in most cases, the central Russian media have remained silent or extremely sparse in covering a trend that has left many on edge.

            (For the history of this plague which until recently has hit the regions and republics of the country harder than the city of Moscow and of the restricted coverage of it in Moscow news outlets, see the sources cited in windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/05/telephone-bomb-threats-force.html.)

            But now the anonymous callers say they have placed bombs in Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square as well as at the Duma, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Ostankino television tower, something the central news agencies clearly can’t ignore even if as they say none of the reports have been confirmed (tass.ru/proisshestviya/6530896).ss

            Over the past week, Interfax reports, citing “informed sources,” some 50 locations in the capital have supposedly been mined, according to anonymous telephone calls. All have had to be checked out, forcing evacuations in many of them, but as of now, none has been confirmed, the news agency says (interfax.ru/moscow/663818).

                Not only does this new wave of “mining” create inconveniences for some and fears of more, but it inevitably raises questions among Russians as to why the authorities can’t do more to stop it by bringing to justice those responsible, yet more questions that the Kremlin certainly doesn’t want people to be asking.