MOSCOW, September 17. / TASS/. More than 5,000 people were evacuated from shopping malls in Moscow over bomb threats on Sunday.
Bomb calls came to the Okeania trade and entertainment center on Moscow’s central Kutuzovsky Avenue, the Khorosho! center in a northern suburb, Mega Teply Stan in a southwestern suburb, and Okhotny Ryad on Manezhnaya Square just a stone’s throw from the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, a bomb threat at the Khorosho! trade center proved to be hoax as specialists with dogs found no suspicious-looking objects.
A wave of bomb calls in Russian cities began on September 11. The peak of such calls was reported on September 13 when anonymous callers warned of possible explosions at 100 facilities, mostly schools, railway terminals, airports and trade centers, in Moscow only.
According to TASS sources, the police believe it was a planned action organized by a group of persons. The mass media offered various theories, from the so-called Ukrainian trace (like in 2014, when false bomb calls came from Ukrainian telephone numbers) to a theory that it was the job of Islamic State.
A TASS source said that the police were taking effort to identify the hoax callers.