Russia beefed up security and mourned its dead on Tuesday as the toll from jarring successive-day suicide strikes in the run-up to the Sochi Winter Olympic Games rose to 34.
The southern city of Volgograd began to bury the first victims of Sunday’s bombing of the heartland hub’s main railway station that killed 18 people and which officials have provisionally blamed on a young woman from the restive North Caucasus region of Dagestan.
A second suicide attack on a trolleybus packed with students on Monday that investigators pinned on a male assailant has now claimed 16 lives.
The blasts are Russia’s deadliest since a suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport that was claimed by Islamic insurgents from North Caucasus killed 37 people in January 2011.
The latest attacks have laid bare the unchecked threat posed by guerrillas who have vowed to target civilians in a bid to undermine President Vladimir Putin as he welcomes world guests to Sochi for the Game’s opening ceremony on February 7.
Putin has not spoken publically about the tragedies but is expected to address the nation during a midnight New Year address that will be watched closely for signs of how he intends to act next.
The powerful Russian leader issued a string of directives yesterday ordering security stepped up at public transit points across the nation and extra police deployed on the streets of Volgograd.
The city of one million — known as Stalingrad in the Soviet era and which is 690 km northeast of Sochi — saw more than 5,000 law enforcement agents check traffic and inspect public transport on Tuesday morning. “The operational headquarters of the Volgograd region has decided to call up extra reserves and enrol maximum police and interior ministry soldiers possible,” Interfax quoted regional security spokesman Andrei Pilipchuk as saying.