Three months after the bloody attack on the Crocus City Hall – 145 dead in a Moscow concert hall on March 22 – Russia was once again the target of a major terrorist attack on Sunday, June 23. This time, several churches and synagogues were targeted, in attacks that took place in several parts of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in the Russian Caucasus with a population of around 3 million, the scene of anti-Jewish campaigns in recent months.

At least 20 people were killed and 46 wounded, including "civilians and members of the security forces", according to a report issued on Monday, June 24, by the Dagestan Ministry of Health.

As a sign of the violence of these armed actions, the authorities announced on Monday morning that "more than 15 policemen" had been killed. The number of civilian victims – "several" according to the regional governor, four according to the Investigation Committee – is still uncertain. Two have been identified: the janitor of an Orthodox church in Makhatchkala, the regional capital, and a priest serving in the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin, in Derbent, a city in the south of the region that boasts centuries of cohabitation between the three great monotheistic religions.

According to initial reports, Father Nikolai, 66, had his throat slit with a knife while preparing for the service of the Saint-Trinity, the Orthodox equivalent of Pentecost. He had worked in Derbent for 40 years and enjoyed good relations with Muslim clerics. According to Vladimir Sevrinovski, a journalist specializing in the region, he had made a commitment to them to refuse any conversion requests from Muslims.

There is no doubt about the coordinated nature of the attack, for which no claim had yet been made on Monday morning. Shots rang out simultaneously in the two cities of Makhatchkala and Derbent at around 6 pm local time. In Derbent, the assailants first attacked the church, not far from which an initial shootout broke out with the police, before moving on to the historic synagogue in the center. A fire broke out in the adjoining prayer room before spreading to the main building. Gunfire was heard throughout the city late into the evening.

In Makhachkala, it seems that the assailants first tried to attack the synagogue. Images filmed by witnesses showed several attackers, faces uncovered, firing automatic weapons at a police roadblock set up near the religious building on Ermochkina Street. Two of them were identified as the sons of the head of the Sergokala district in central Dagestan. A former MMA champion, a combat sport widely practiced in the region, was also identified.

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