The deadly attack in a Moscow concert hall has plunged anxious Russians back to a time they thought they’d left behind, when a wave of violence engulfed the country early in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
The assault by gunmen as people gathered for a rock concert at Crocus City Hall on Friday night killed at least 137 people, the worst atrocity in the capital in more than two decades. Authorities continue to sift for more victims through the burnt-out husk of the giant building that’s come to symbolize a pivotal moment for many Russians, whomever they blame for the slaughter.
"Russians have their own 9/11,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Moscow. The concert assault "quickly brought back these memories and state of fear,” he added, referring to a series of terror attacks that began in the late 1990s and spread a climate of fear across the country as Putin was rising to power.