Country Reports on Terrorism 2016 - Russia

Overview: The Russian Federation continued to prioritize counterterrorism efforts in 2016, and Russia remained a target of international terrorist groups, particularly ISIS. The majority of counterterrorism activities conducted in 2016 targeted armed groups in the Russian North Caucasus, but government officials noted Russia has encountered increased ISIS-related activity in their law enforcement activities throughout the country following ISIS's August call to jihad within Russia.

In 2016, Moscow cited the threat posed by terrorists to justify its ongoing military intervention in Syria and the passage of far-reaching, "anti-extremism" legislation. As of June, the Russian government estimated 3,500 Russian citizens were fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Russia also continued to pursue counterterrorism cooperation with foreign partners, and expressed a desire to work with the United States to address terrorist threats. Despite rhetorical emphasis on operations against ISIS and al-Nusrah Front (al-Qa'ida's affiliate in Syria), the great majority of Russian airstrikes in Syria targeted the moderate opposition.

Russia's counterterrorism focus also included the activities of the Imarat Kavkaz (Caucasus Emirate), Hizb ut-Tahrir – which Russia considers a terrorist organization, but the United States does not – and Aum Shinrikyo, which Russia's Supreme Court banned in September.

ISIL-Caucasus Province (ISIL-CP) has remained largely inactive, except for two claimed attacks in 2015. In December 2016, Russian security forces announced they killed ISIL-CP leader Rustam Aselderov and four other militants in Dagestan; a successor had not been named at the end of 2016.

2016 Terrorist Incidents: Few high-profile terrorist attacks were conducted within Russia in 2016, although the assassination of Russia's ambassador to Turkey in December underscored the threat to Russian personnel and interests overseas. Domestic attacks did not display a high degree of planning or sophistication and typically involved a provoked encounter with law enforcement. Attacks included:

• In an August 17 attack later claimed by ISIS, two men attacked policemen with guns and axes at a traffic checkpoint in a Moscow suburb. Both of the attackers were killed by police and one policeman was seriously injured.

• On October 23, Russian authorities in Nizhny Novgorod killed two suspected terrorists who resisted inspection of their vehicle; a third suspect was reportedly arrested. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the would-be attackers and claimed the two men were "soldiers of the Islamic State."

• On December 17, alleged ISIS-affiliated militants in Grozny, Chechnya stabbed a police officer and used his weapon and a stolen car to kill three policemen. The attackers were allegedly recruited and commanded by a Syria-based ISIS commander and online videos showed several of the attackers pledging allegiance to ISIS. In counterterrorism raids on December 18, Chechen forces claimed to have killed seven of the suspects and captured four others.

• On December 19, Russia's Ambassador to Turkey, attending the opening of an art exhibit in Ankara, was assassinated by an off-duty police officer who denounced Moscow's military activity in Syria. Russian and Turkish authorities announced a joint commission to investigate the assassination.

Legislation, Law Enforcement, and Border Security: Russia has a comprehensive counterterrorism legal framework that includes the provisions of the Criminal Code and various federal laws including, "On Countering Terrorism," "On Money Laundering and Terrorist financing," "On Countering Extremist Activity," "On Security on Transport," and "On Security in the Fuel and Energy Complex." Throughout 2016, however, the Russian government continued to use its "anti-extremism" legislation to prosecute peaceful individuals and organizations, including the political opposition, independent media, and certain religious minorities. In July 2016, Russia adopted the so-called "Yarovaya Package" of amendments, which grants authorities broad additional powers, ostensibly to counter terrorism and extremism. It criminalizes acts such as failing to report terrorist-related crimes and justifying terrorism on social media and requires telecommunications companies to retain data to aid future law enforcement investigations. While the law's stated purpose is to help counter extremism, almost all of the applications observed in 2016 targeted the unsanctioned religious activities of minority Christian denominations.

A law in the Chechen Republic requires relatives of terrorists to pay the cost of damages caused by an attack, which human rights advocates criticized as collective punishment. The Memorial Human Rights Center reported that Chechen Republic authorities upheld the principle of collective responsibility in punishing the relatives of alleged members of illegal armed groups. The Memorial Human Rights Center and Caucasian Knot reported that, following an armed attack by two militants on a checkpoint in the village of Alkhan-Kala in Grozny's rural district in May, the homes of the attackers' families were set on fire.

Russia maintains several large, professional, and relatively well-funded security services that are focused on countering terrorism. The FSB is the primary agency responsible for domestic counterterrorism activities, but the Ministry of Interior (MVD) and newly created National Guard also play a role. The National Guard force was formed with troops from MVD and other armed personnel in April, and is officially charged with combating terrorism, extremism, and helping to secure Russia's borders. Some political commentators, however, have speculated it is intended to protect against domestic unrest. In October, a presidential decree stipulated that the National Guard will maintain the national fingerprint database. The FSB International Cooperation Directorate, through a joint relationship with the National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC), has developed the "International Counterterrorism Database," which holds both an unclassified and a restricted section. The FSB exclusively maintains and controls this database – which it promotes as the only international database that adheres to UN Security Council resolution 2178 – but it has invited international intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contribute information on events, subjects, organizations, and methods.

Despite an intense focus on counterterrorism, Russia's security services are challenged by the task of securing Russia's 12,000 miles of land border and more than 23,000 miles of coastline. Border crossings, particularly on the frontiers between Russia and some former Soviet republics, may not be registered. Given that Russia maintains a robust operational pace in North Caucasus (against ISIL-CP), many of Russia's 2016 counterterrorism operations targeted Central Asian migrant workers. While border guards have the capability of collecting biometrics at ports of entry and there are standard operating procedures for information sharing, it is unclear how often these procedures are followed. A traveler to Russia must receive a visa from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, be permitted entry by the FSB through the Border Guard Service, and then be registered with the Directorate for Migration Affairs, which in April was converted from an autonomous organization to a division of the MVD. Citizens of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries may enter Russia for up to 90 days without registration with the MVD.

During 2016, Russian officials announced steps to improve border security. In November, Russia's Deputy Interior Minister announced that all foreigners arriving in Russia will be fingerprinted as of January 2017. In June, President Putin announced that Russia would create a federal information system for registering biometric data and effective operational intelligence, although it is unclear if and when the project will come into effect.

Terrorism-related law enforcement activities continued in 2016. The majority of operations occurred in the North Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia, but several high-profile cases took place in major Russian cities. Significant events included:

• On February 7, the FSB arrested seven alleged ISIS members in Yekaterinburg. Officials commented the suspects were both Russian and Central Asian and were arrested before they could carry out planned attacks in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Sverdlovsk region of Russia.

• On October 7, the FSB killed six militants during an operation in the Nazran district of Ingushetia. Authorities said they had been tipped off that the militants were plotting to stage terrorist attacks and announced that Zabairi Sautiyev, an ISIS emissary who arrived from Syria "to resume terrorist activity in the republic," was among those killed.

• On November 12, the FSB, working in collaboration with Tajik and Kyrgyz authorities, arrested 10 Central Asian migrants for plotting terrorist attacks in Moscow and St. Petersburg. All suspects reportedly confessed to having had contact with ISIS.

• On December 3, the FSB killed Rustam Aselderov, aka Abu Muhamad al-Kadari, in an operation in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. Aselderov was the leader of ISIS's Caucasus branch and had been linked to several terrorist attacks within Russia over the past several years.

Russia also continued to prosecute alleged terrorists and those accused of supporting terrorism. On November 11, a court in Kazan, the capital of the Muslim-majority Republic of Tatarstan, added 77 individuals to a wanted list for pursuing jihad in Syria. In July, authorities placed Imam Makhmud Velitov of Moscow's Yardyam mosque under house arrest after he was charged with "public calls for terrorist activities or public justification of terrorism" after giving a sermon in support of Hizb ut-Tahrir in September 2013. If convicted, Velitov faces a sentence between two to five years.

Despite the tensions in the overall bilateral relationship with the United States, Russian security services have engaged in a limited amount of cooperation on counterterrorism matters. Russia continued to disseminate threat information and occasionally responded to requests for information, although its responses were often not substantive or timely. The Russian government continued to cooperate with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) investigation of subjects associated with the Boston Marathon bombing. Both the FSB and Investigative Committee requested information from the FBI pertaining to the downing of the Russian charter plane in Egypt in October 2015. The FSB requested the FBI's assistance regarding security preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

There were no known legal constraints to effective Russian law enforcement and border security related to counterterrorism, although ethnic or clan ties in certain regions can make policing and prosecutions difficult. Important cases are often moved to Moscow or other regions to ensure a judge is not influenced by a clan.

Countering the Financing of Terrorism: Russia is a member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and two FATF-style regional bodies: the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism, and the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG), in which it is a leading member and primary funding source. Through the EAG, Russia provides technical assistance and other resources towards improving legislative and regulatory frameworks and operational capabilities. Russia's financial intelligence unit (FIU), the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring), is a member of the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units. Rosfinmonitoring is overseen by the President of Russia.

The highest levels of the Russian government support counterterrorist finance initiatives, and in November 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order to establish an interagency commission on preventing the financing of terrorism. Since then, its organization, activities, and reporting appear to be focused at the municipal level. At the end of 2016, Rosfinmonitoring continued its efforts to move forward a draft bill to ratify the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure, and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (aka the "Warsaw Convention").

The most current data on investigations and convictions of terrorist financing is from 2015. In that year, the Russian government conducted more than 7,700 financial investigations, which included more than 3,500 persons suspected of involvement in international terrorist organizations, including ISIS. In 2015, the list maintained by Rosfinmonitoring of natural and legal persons tied to extremist activities or terrorism expanded, resulting in the freezing of 3,019 accounts totaling approximately US $610,000. As of November 9, 2016, this list included 7,245 individuals and legal entities: 6,659 individuals and 79 legal entities within Russia, and 413 foreign individuals and 94 foreign legal entities.

Russia has oversight of the financial sector to reduce persistently high capital outflows and fictitious transactions which puts pressure on smaller financial institutions most likely to engage in money laundering and terrorist financing. The primary regulator is the Central Bank of Russia, which has revoked a large number of banking licenses over the past few years, often citing the presence of dubious transactions.

For further information on money laundering and financial crimes, see the 2017 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), Volume II, Money Laundering and Financial Crimes: http://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/index.htm.

Countering Violent Extremism: Despite adopting a countering violent extremism strategy in November 2014, the Russian government continued to take a predominantly militarized approach to the terrorist threat. In November, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov criticized the UN Secretary-General's plan to counter violent extremism for ostensibly promoting domestic unrest and eroding focus on counterterrorism. To the extent the Russian government works to counter violent extremism, it focuses on enforcement mechanisms and program administration through governmental agencies or organizations controlled by the government. The Russian government is reluctant to work with independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Russian-based NGOs, in this area.

International and Regional Cooperation: Russia significantly increased counterterrorism outreach in 2016. In addition to continuing work in regional and multilateral groups, Russia expanded its bilateral efforts. In 2016, Russia held consultations or signed formal counterterrorism agreements with: Afghanistan, Australia, China, India, The Kyrgyz Republic, Nigeria, Pakistan, Serbia, Turkey, and the European Union. Russia is a member of and participated in UN and Global Counterterrorism Forum activities and advanced counterterrorism agendas in several other groups of which it is a member, including the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa group, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum.