Russian officials' silence on nationwide bomb threats is reportedly the result of a gag order by the Federal Security Service

Russia’s Federal Security Service has reportedly ordered spokespeople for Russia’s Interior Ministry and Emergency Management Ministry to withhold all commentary regarding a nationwide wave of bomb threats that has led to evacuations of schools, shopping centers, and more, a source in the Russian federal government told told the newspaper Vedomosti. According to the source, the Federal Security Service has issued the gag order to avoid “inciting a panic” and potential copycat “phone terrorism.” 

Shopping centers, schools, universities, city halls, and hotels have been evacuated in cities across Russia, forcing thousands of people into yards and parking lots, as police investigate a coordinated series of phony bomb threats. It remains unknown who is behind the calls, which have occurred in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Bryansk, Chelyabinsk, Stavropol, Ufa, Magadan, Ryazan, and other cities.

On September 13, the leader of the rightwing group “Christian State — Holy Rus,” Alexander Kalinin, declared on Vkontakte that the bomb threats are part of a “social campaign” against Alexey Uchitel’s controversial new film “Matilda,” an upcoming movie about the ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska and her relationship with Nicholas II before he became tsar, which Orthodox Christian activists have condemned as a sacrilegious affront.