were organized by FSB agents. Alexander J. Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University argues that Russia's direct and indirect involvement in the violence in eastern Ukraine qualifies as a state-sponsored terrorism, and that those involved qualify as "terrorist groups." In May 2016, Reuters published a Special Report titled "How Russia allowed homegrown radicals to go and fight in Syria" that, based on first-hand evidence, said that at least in the period between 2012 and 2014 the Russian government agencies ran a programme to facilitate and encourage Russian radicals and militants to leave Russia and go to Turkey and then on to Syria; the persons in question had joined jihadist groups, some fighting with the ISIL. According to the report, the goal has been to eradicate the risk of Islamic terrorism at home; however Russian security officials deny that terrorists were encouraged to leave Russia. In 2018, after the poisoning of Skripals, the State Department was reportedly prepared to officially designate Russia as "state sponsor of terrorism" by US law based on the cases described above, but the work has been stopped as it was decided that it would interfere with US options in areas where it has to cooperate with Russia. In April 2019 Security Service of Ukraine arrested 7 Russians traveling on counterfeit passports accused of preparing a car bombing against a Ukrainian military intelligence officer. One of them, traveling with fake Kyrgyzstan passport, was identified as Timur Dzortov, previously deputy chief of staff to the leader Ingushetia. Another man, responsible for actually planting the bomb in the car, accidentally triggered it and was wounded by the blast. SBU accused officer Dmitry Minayev from Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) of coordinating the group. On February 10, 2020, seven Russian anarchists and anti-fascist activists were sentenced to six to eighteen years in prison, being housed in different penal colonies. The activist were accused to be members of "The Set" an alleged terrorist organization from Penza that aimed to "overthrow the Russian government". 1999 Russian apartment bombings The Russian apartment bombings were a series of bombings in Russia that killed nearly 300 people and, together with the Dagestan War, led the country into the Second Chechen War. The four bombings took place in the Russian cities of Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk during early days of September 1999. The bombings were followed by a controversial episode when a suspected bomb