Three Tajik migrants have been killed in a Russian security forces raid, relatives and friends said, after local authorities claimed they had uncovered a terrorist plot in Russia's western Pskov region.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on February 13 that it had “neutralized” three members of an unnamed “international terrorist organization” who had been preparing an attack to “blow up the main railway station” in the provincial capital, Pskov, with makeshift bombs.
Footage released by the FSB shows heavily armed law enforcement agents raiding a house where the suspects had allegedly been making explosive devices. The video also depicts knives, nails, several bottles of a flammable chemical, acetone, and other items that the suspects had purportedly gathered to use as components for homemade bombs.
The recording also shows the body of a man on the floor, with what appears to be a gunshot wound to his stomach and a rifle beside his right hand.
Describing the men as “citizens of one of the Central Asian countries,” the FSB said in a statement that they had been acting “on the instructions of a foreign-based emissary” of a terrorist organization and had planned to flee to “a Near East county” after carrying out the attack.
The statement did not name the suspects, but several days later relatives and acquaintances of the men identified them as Tajik migrant workers Azizjon Azamqulzoda, Jovid Jumaev, and Parviz Rustamov.
They disputed Russian authorities’ claim that the migrants were members of a foreign terrorist group.
Fear Of Backlash
“I knew these young men very well, they had so many plans and dreams for the future,” said a Pskov-based Tajik migrant worker, who gave only his first name, Behzod.
“No one [among those who knew them] believes that they would be engaged in [terrorist] activity. Also, they were not the kind of people who would do something like this for money,” Behzod said, adding that he believes the Tajik workers “were made scapegoats” by Russian authorities.
Bozorboi Azamqulzoda, the father of one of the suspects, told RFE/RL's Central Asian Migrants Unit on February 17 that his son, Azizjon Azamqulzoda wasn’t religious and "did not pray."
The three men used to work together as waiters at the Chaikhona restaurant in Pskov, but Rustamov quit to become a taxi driver, while Azamqulzoda found a job at a shopping center.
Behzod and several other Tajik workers in Pskov told RFE/RL that the migrant community is concerned about a potential backlash following the FSB announcement.
Behzod said many Tajiks are too afraid to leave their homes.
SEE ALSO: Tajik Regime Alarmed As Moscow Terror Attack Fallout Has Migrants Streaming HomeTajik and other Central Asian migrants reported a spike in xenophobic attacks after a terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow region killed 145 people in March 2024.
Russian authorities said the massacre was carried out by four Tajik nationals.
Tens of thousands of Central Asians have been deported or denied entry to Russia following the attack.