More police on Russia's streets after terror alert

Authorities sent additional police units and officers onto the streets of many Russian cities today, a day after officials announced a warning about a possible terrorist threat on public transportation.

Uniformed police, Interior Ministry officers and bomb-sniffing dogs could be seen in some underground stations, train stations and other sites around Moscow, and Russian television showed a heightened police presence at other places around the country.

A top Russian police official, Interior Ministry Col Gen Nikolai Rogozhkin, was quoted by RIA-Novosti as saying that 5,000 extra police troops had been dispatched to protect public transport in Moscow, St Petersburg and other major centres.

A Federal Security Service official said yesterday that the national anti-terrorism headquarters had received information “from foreign partners … about the possibility a subversive terrorist act could be committed on ground transport and in the subway".