Several courthouses in St. Petersburg were forced to evacuate after receiving bomb threats on Friday, a court spokesperson told the RBC news outlet, coming as universities in Moscow also ordered evacuations for a second day in a row over similar threats.
The spokesperson confirmed that the Kirovsky, Kalininsky, Oktyabrsky and Smolninsky District Courts in St. Petersburg had all been evacuated.
Staff and students at the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics were also evacuated due to a bomb threat, the university’s press service told RBC.
“Law enforcement authorities are conducting an investigation,” the press service was quoted as saying. The university later reopened, while some classes were moved online.
Similar evacuations were reported at more than a dozen universities throughout Moscow on Thursday, including Moscow State University of Service and Transportation, Moscow State University of Psychology and Education, Moscow Polytechnic University and Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia.
It was not immediately clear who made the bomb threats, but the number of attacks and sabotage operations in Russia blamed on Ukraine has grown in recent years.
