New Revolutionary Alternative
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During the late 1990s, several bombing attacks were carried out against the Federal Security Service (FSB) by far-left activists of the Russian Communist Workers Party (RCWP), who had become disillusioned with the post-Soviet government of Russia.[1] In 1998, RCWP member Alexander Biryukov carried out a bombing attack against the FSB.[2] In April 1999, four women affiliated with the RCWP carried out a bombing of the Lubyanka Building, the headquarters of the FSB in Moscow.[1] The latter bombing was allegedly carried out in protest against the carpet bombing of Grozny during the Second Chechen War.[3] Following these attacks, the FSB announced the existence of a new far-left terrorist organisation, the "New Revolutionary Alternative", which the FSB held responsible for the bombings.[2] In 2001, it was reported that NRA had also set off bombs in Moscow military offices (Ostankino in 1996 and Cheryomushkinsky in 1997).[4]
In 2003, Nadezhda Raks, Olga Nevskaya, Larisa Romanova, and Tatiana Nekhorosheva-Sokolova were found guilty of the bombings.[5] Romanova's sentence was later commuted.[6] Alexander Biryukov was declared incompetent to stand trial and was sent to a psychiatric hospital.[7]
Legacy
The New Revolutionary Alternative has since become associated with anarchism and has been listed alongside other anarchist terrorist groups of the late 20th century, such as the German 2 June Movement and the Italian Revolutionary Proletarian Initiative Nuclei.[8] The Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK) has cited the NRA as an inspiration for its attacks against Russian rail infrastructure following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[3]