Moscow-Sana
The head of the National Counter-Terrorism Committee, Director of the Russian Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, announced today that the Russian intelligence services have data on 4,500 Russian citizens who previously joined the ranks of international terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq.
In an interview with the Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, to be published in its tomorrow's issue, Bortnikov said, “The system of anti-terrorist measures allows in a timely manner to detect potential terrorists and cut off their activities while they are considered in Russia as war criminals,” noting that thousands of people from Russia and the space countries The former Soviet Union was involved in participating in the terrorist activities of ISIS and would have appeared on the territory of Russia had it not been for the terrible defeat they suffered in Syria.
Bortnikov stressed that it is very difficult in the era of globalization for one country on its own to defeat terrorism, whether it is Russia, France, the United States, or any other country, and it is necessary not only to suppress terrorism in a specific country’s territory, but to work on its distant borders, and that is why President Vladimir Putin has taken The decision to direct units of the Russian armed forces to Syria and to start a war operation there that made it possible to eliminate the bridges of the terrorist organization ISIS.
The head of the Russian intelligence service pointed out that it was possible for the militants of the terrorist organization ISIS to infiltrate the territory of Russia had it not been for the resolute actions taken by the Russian military to counter this activity, noting that during the last eight years more than a thousand terrorists have been punished as a punishment for organizing channels for illegal immigration.
Bortnikov explained that investigations are being conducted and all legal measures are being taken to inflict inevitable punishment on all terrorists without exception, including those who returned to Russia from hotspots, those who recruited them, and the people who organized their transportation and financing of their terrorist activity.