system in the winter of 1978. This was our first encounter with political terrorism, when the criminals aimed not only to attract attention to themselves but also to kill as many people as possible. The number of victims at that time was in the dozens.

The next stage of radical manifestations of extremism concerns the most recent phase of Russian history. Following is an incomplete list of crimes committed in Moscow alone in the past five years that are classified as terrorism according to our laws:

• 1998: bombings at the Tretyakovskaya subway station (three wounded) and at a synagogue

• 1999: car bombings at the U.S. embassy and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) (2 wounded); bombings in the lobby of the Intourist Hotel (11 wounded), at the MVD, and at the shopping mall at Manezh Square (1 killed, 40 wounded); bombings of two apartment buildings on Guryanov Street and Kashirskoe Shosse (more than 200 killed, including 21 children)

• 2000: bombing in the underground pedestrian passageway at Pushkin Square (7 killed, 53 wounded)

• 2001: bombing at the Belorusskaya subway station (10 killed)

• 2002: detonation of a 122-mm fragmentation mine shell at a McDonald’s restaurant (1 killed, 7 wounded); seizure of hostages at the theater on Dubrovka Street (129 killed, of which 7 were foreign citizens)

To this list of terrorist acts we should also add the bombings in Buinaksk and Volgodonsk, the bombing of the government building in Grozny, and others. Clearly, this situation in Russia and in our major cities is directly linked with processes under way in the south, especially in the Chechen Republic. This region is also the focal point of the majority of crimes of a terrorist nature.

In predicting how the situation will develop, we should anticipate an increase in terrorism and certain directly associated crimes such as banditry. The increase in the number of serious and extremely serious crimes is a matter of considerable concern. The proportion of these crimes could reach 54.7 percent of all acts subject to criminal penalties. Insufficient sample size precludes us from making a reliable quantitative forecast for the crimes mentioned above. However, current growth trends point to the growing terrorist danger facing all citizens of the country (see Table 1).

During the forecast period, the unbreakable criminological linkage between terrorism and crimes related to the illegal trade in narcotics and powerful psychotropic substances is evident. If the main channels through which drugs flow are not blocked, the volume of drug-related crime will increase substantially. We can expect that the registered number of drug-related crimes will grow by 26.3 percent in 2003 as compared with the level in 2002.

Making a fundamental assessment of the growing crime threat, Russian Federation President Vladimir V. Putin said: “We are paying a heavy price both for