Anonymous Terrorism In Light of Elections

According to the experts, the main motives that incite people to such activity are today the same as always: the wish to improve one's financial status, settle personal accounts, political extremism, and mental illness. About 33% of the authors of anonymous letters are elderly people, one fourth office workers, and one fifth workers in the industrial and agricultural sectors.

For instance, the Krasny Luch Mine director received a letter threatening to blow up the mine if UAH 100,000 was not brought to the old dynamite plant, adding threats to the personal safety of his family if the police were brought in. The anonymous author was found and brought to account. And in the last year, the Security Service Department in Luhansk oblast was searching for a Starobilsk pensioners' underground committee which issued leaflets calling people to take up pitchforks and arms, and take away from the authorities, for everything that belongs to people. The "committee" turned out to be just one person.

People's Deputies have to ask the Security Service for help as well. The head of Rovenky local council got an anonymous letter demanding he step down. The author was a person who intended to lay hands on some property and, thus was trying to reduce the influence of certain people.

According to Colonel Kuklachenko, the head of the Unit for National Statehood Security within the Security Service, if there are facts of arson, explosions, taking hostages, riots, and if the matter concerns the state's sovereignty and public harmony, the Security Service takes most effective measures to identify the author within the shortest term possible and find out the true reasons why he or she has committed such an act. Finding an anonymous terrorist requires highly qualified experts (and not only those of the Security Service), funds, and time, stressed Colonel Kuklachenko.

In this year, ten anonymous notes have been recorded in the oblast, with serious threats involving explosion or arson. A chart shows that as the presidential elections draw nearer, the anonymous authors' interest is shifting toward the political and economic sphere. Hence, the National Security Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs focus their attention there.