More than 2,500 armed militants have been killed in the North Caucasus since 2006, while around 5,000 of their alleged accomplices have been detained, Chair of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) and head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Aleksandr Bortnikov has stated.
Speaking with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Bortnikov highlighted that many of these ‘well-armed militants […] underwent lengthy training under the guidance of experienced instructors’.
Bortnikov noted that the decision to create the NAC was made after a series of major terrorist attacks in Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. According to Russian authorities, terrorist structures at that time were supported from abroad.
‘It became obvious that the terrorist groups were externally controlled. This control was exercised by the intelligence services of countries that hypocritically declared partnership with us’, Bortnikov said.
He added that during that period, ‘terrorism transformed into an instrument of geopolitical struggle against Russia’, and that the number and scale of attacks were steadily increasing.
He specifically highlighted the 2004 terrorist attack in Beslan, calling it ‘a kind of Rubicon’, after which the country’s leadership decided to change its approach to counter-terrorism. As a result, in March 2006 the NAC and the Federal Operational Headquarters were established by presidential decree.
According to Bortnikov, the new system was given ‘a threefold task — combating terrorism, preventing it, and minimising and eliminating the consequences of terrorist acts’.
Bortnikov then went on to note how in recent years, the nature of threats had changed. He linked this to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, saying that ‘in addition to international terrorist organisations, we are now confronted by the intelligence services of Ukraine and their foreign “puppet masters” ’.
He claimed ‘the operations planned by the adversary have become more complex’, while their intelligence and technical support has increased. Bortnikov further asserted that ‘career soldiers of Ukrainian intelligence agencies are included in the composition of sabotage and reconnaissance groups sent into Russian territory’.
Bortnikov said that Russian security services regard the situation as a ‘sabotage-terrorist war’.
‘In essence, a real sabotage-terrorist war has been declared against us, in which the enemy is not only attempting to deliver targeted strikes but is also indiscriminately attacking civilians with missiles and drones’, he said.
According to the figures cited by Bortnikov, in 2025 alone, the activities of 79 ‘clandestine terrorist cells’ were disrupted in Russia.
‘More than 2,500 bandits and their accomplices were detained. Twenty-seven terrorists were killed after offering armed resistance’, he said.
He also said that during the same period ‘423 terrorist-related crimes were prevented, including 308 terrorist attacks’.
According to Bortnikov, one of the key tasks remains ‘preventing the spread of terrorist ideology’, noting that institutions, public organisations and religious leaders are involved in preventive work.
He also referred to the North Caucasus, where, according to him, special programmes were being implemented. Bortnikov said that in regions of the North Caucasus Federal District, authorities have worked with families of children who had been transferred to home schooling for religious reasons. He claimed that the Russian authorities were able to convince the majority of these households to return their children to the system.
‘As a result of explanatory and outreach work, it was possible to return the majority of such children — 3,212 out of 4,852 — to the education system’, he said.
He also noted that over the past five years more than 20 federal laws, four presidential decrees and more than 70 government acts have been adopted in the field of counter-terrorism.
Concluding the interview, Bortnikov said that the Russian authorities continue to develop international cooperation in the fight against terrorism. According to him, an international terrorism database created under the auspices of the NAC is used by ‘74 intelligence and law enforcement agencies from 55 countries’.
‘When there is a change of elites in the West — and this will inevitably happen — politics will give way to professionalism and our cooperation will be restored’, he said.
Human rights defenders have previously pointed out that ‘terrorism’ cases were often accompanied by limited access to information and a lack of independent public verification of the evidence.
In recent years, the FSB and Interior Ministry have announced several operations in which they ‘neutralised’ alleged members of terrorist groups. These operations have usually been conducted as counter-terrorism operations, but in none of the known cases have the authorities provided independent proof of the suspects’ links to extremist or terrorist organisations.
