Estonian Officials React to Volgograd Bombings
Estonia's president and foreign minister issued statements of condolence after yesterday's bombing in the Russian city of Volgograd, which was hit by a second blast this morning.
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said that the fact the tragedy took place in the festive season, when many are traveling home, was especially horrific.
"My sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of the deceased and fast recovery to the injured," the president said.
“Estonia condemns terrorism. Organizing the explosion, killing and injuring people is a horrendous crime,” Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said on Sunday.
Olympics on the horizon
The head of the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Marko Mihkelson, said that the acts of terror show that the conflict which broke out in Chechnya in 1994 is still posing internal security risks in Russia.
“With less than two months before the winter Olympics, the biggest question for Russian security services is whether attacks such as today's, in Volgograd, threaten the organization of the games,” Mihkelson said.
After Sunday's suicide attack killed 17 people at the city's central railway station, a suspected suicide bombing on a trollybus this morning claimed at least another 14 lives.
In October, a suicide attack on a bus killed six in the same city, which is 600 kilometers from Sochi, the site of the 2014 winter Olympics.