On August 12, the FSB department in Dagestan noted that the defendants in the criminal case regarding the preparation of a terrorist attack in Kaspiysk had initially planned to travel to Somalia "for jihad." 

Two of the defendants, Husein Abdullayev and Muhammad Ramazanov, were employed as loaders at the warehouse of the Meijik Trans transportation company in Kaspiysk. Both were adherents of the Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa religious movement, which is recognized as a terrorist and banned in Russia. They were later joined by Rashid Karibov, another employee at Majik Trans who also held radical views.

While on a trip to Grozny, ostensibly to assist with unloading, Abdullayev, Ramazanov, and Karibov decided to pursue "jihad," with Somalia as their initial destination. However, they abandoned this plan because none of them possessed a foreign passport. Their new target became Kaspiysk.

Investigators revealed that the group's original plan was to carry out an explosion either in the church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God or at a location with a high concentration of police officers. They also considered setting the church on fire. The group conducted reconnaissance around the church, examining the placement of surveillance cameras and the positions of police officers guarding the site and noting their weapons and vehicles.

Eventually, they decided to scale the church's fence, armed with a homemade bomb, Molotov cocktails, and a traumatic pistol. The militants also planned to attack a PPS patrol with knives and a traumatic gun in order to seize their service weapons.

FSB officers detained residents of Kaspiysk, and a criminal case was subsequently opened against them under several articles of the Russian Federation's Criminal Code, including part 1 of article 30 and part 2 of article 205 (preparation for a terrorist act), part 1 of article 205.4 (organization of a terrorist community and participation in it), and part 3 of article 223.1 (illegal manufacture of explosives). All the defendants confessed to the charges.