MOSCOW, December 9 (RAPSI) – Russia’s security services have prevented 59 terrorist crimes this year, including eight terrorist attacks, TASS reports from the yearend meeting of the National Antiterrorism Committee chaired by Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov.

The nomenclature of "terrorist crime" was adopted by Russian law enforcement in the recent years, to include criminal activity directly or indirectly aiding and abetting terrorism, such as financing, weapons smuggling, and recruitment.

Bortnikov said 233 terrorists, including 38 terrorist leaders, had been killed and 637 terrorists and their accomplices had been arrested during counterterrorist operations in the North Caucasus this year.

He said that 219 people had been found guilty of terrorist crimes. Four of them were sentenced to over 45 years for involvement in the triple terrorist attacks in Volgograd in December 2013, in which 34 people were killed.

Three terrorist attacks were staged in Volgograd: at the railway station on December 29 and in a trolley on December 30. In all, 34 people died and over 70 were wounded in these suicide bombings. On October 21, a suicide bomber blew herself up in a local bus, killing seven people and wounding about 50.

Bortnikov said one of the key priorities for 2015 would be improving the terrorism prevention system in Crimea.