The FSB is blowing up Russia. FSB against the people

The version is truly unproven, and perhaps will never be proven, but I categorically disagree that “there was no point.” The unification of the nation under the banner of the fight against terror practically guaranteed the election of Putin, or at least greatly increased the chances. The fact that Chechnya attacked Dagestan before the explosions did not actually change anything. It doesn’t even make sense to check whether this actually happened and check the timing, because, and this must be admitted, the majority of Russian residents do not care about this at all. To put it mildly, in the opinion of this part of the Russians, this is their Caucasian showdown, and the death of policemen or military personnel is their job, and we are not used to this.
It's a completely different matter if houses fall nearby. And then the people immediately understand that they need to rally around a leader who will “dump him in the toilet.” My brain fails (I’m like that myself): there’s no time to figure it out, and there’s not enough information, and the Internet wasn’t so accessible back then. Awareness comes with time, and not for everyone. So Putin’s benefit here is obvious.
If we say that this is impossible in our time, as Primakov said, then this is nonsense: there will always be a group of scumbags ready to carry out any order. I think there’s no need to even give examples, just take the failure (and this is a failure, because it was revealed) of the operation “litvinenko’s elimination”: people even risked their lives - radioactive material, after all - but carried out a criminal order.
The “cherry on the cake” is the fact that it was after the Ryazan incident that the house explosions stopped.
And it’s quite strange to expect recognition from Primakov: he was, of course, an intelligent and experienced politician, but he was also a statist, and he was unlikely to openly speak out against the authorities, and the operation could have been carried out in such a way that few people knew about it.
But, we must admit that for now this is still only a version.
P.S. I think the following needs to be added. On September 13, 1999, at a meeting of the State Duma, speaker G. Seleznev makes an announcement that an explosion occurred in Volgodonsk. But the explosion occurred in Moscow on the Kashirskoe highway, and Volgodonsk was blown up 3 days later - 09/17/1999. How can Moscow and Volgodonsk be so confused? One can believe that on the contrary, one can even believe, with a stretch, that the speaker confused Moscow with St. Petersburg, or Moscow with a city with a similar name (which generally does not exist), but guessing Volgodonsk this way is unrealistic. There are many cities in Russia - it is impossible to make a mistake and get there accurately and predict it. The only reasonable explanation is that the speaker was given the wrong information, but someone there still had a list of places to be blown up, and the one who reported looked in the wrong place, or, well, up the chain.
Interestingly, on September 11, 2001, a similar incident occurred in another place: the BBC reported live that building No. 7 of the World Trade Center had fallen, but the building was still standing at that moment, and fell only after some time. The BBC acknowledges this fact, but cannot explain it. And according to the theory of probability, such oddities are practically impossible, so here you must either believe in the possibility of prediction, or still suspect evil

"The FSB is blowing up Russia"- a book by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky, dedicated to the conspiracy theory about the causes and organizers of a series of terrorist attacks - the explosions of residential buildings in Russia in the fall of 1999, including the role of the FSB in the incident in Ryazan on September 22, 1999. Several chapters from the book were published in a special issue of Novaya Gazeta on August 27, 2001, the first edition was published in 2002, the second, with additional documents, in 2007, after the death of Alexander Litvinenko.

The book claims that the bombings of the houses were carried out by the Russian FSB. In addition, the book contains statements about connections between the FSB of the Russian Federation and criminal groups.

Later, based on the materials of the book and about its authors, several documentaries were made with the titles “FSB blows up Russia”, “Attempt on Russia”, “In memory of the murdered Litvinenko”, available on the Internet both for downloading and on video services.

Seizure of a shipment of books

According to journalist Anne Penketh, the book was confiscated after its first publication.

Extremist publication

Book content ratings

• Oleg Gordievsky in his article in The Times newspaper:

• Sergei Kovalev, Russian human rights activist and politician:

Felshtinsky and Litvinenko claim: “The FSB is blowing up Russia.” I don’t want to believe it, but I try to be an unbiased person and I don’t rule out this version either. I am not ruling out any possibility, neither a Chechen trace, nor a trace from the FSB, nor any intermediate options, but they may also exist. Experience shows that this often happens. I'm generally not a big conspiracy theorist. But the version of Litvinenko and Felshtinsky is pure conspiracy. But whatever seems preferable to you, I believe that the investigator is obliged to adhere to the golden rule of scientists, it is akin. There should not be a sharper and more picky critic of a hypothesis than the author of this hypothesis. He really knows all the details. And he must strive to kill his hypothesis, to destroy it. And if he fails, he sighs with relief and says: Well, now this is not a hypothesis, now it is a proven thing, now it is a theory, at least. Such a desire on the part of the authors of the book is simply not visible. I won’t even talk about the fact that in the book itself, from those episodes that are well known to me as a participant, there is an incredible amount of fantasy. For example, Budennovsk. This is pure fiction, and not a single reference, mind you. This is not how serious books that claim to be authentic are written.

• British magazine "The Observer":

• Sunday Times newspaper:

Vivid condemnation of the Putin regime

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Notes

Links

• The book is available in electronic form in Russian on the website
• Conversation with Mikhail Trepashkin, former FSB colonel,
• Interview with Yuri Felshtinsky on the portal

Excerpt characterizing the FSB blowing up Russia

"Where? Pierre asked himself. Where can you go now? Is it really to the club or guests? All people seemed so pitiful, so poor in comparison with the feeling of tenderness and love that he experienced; in comparison with that softened, grateful look with which she looked at him the last time because of tears.
“Home,” said Pierre, despite the ten degrees of frost, opening his bear coat on his wide, joyfully breathing chest.
It was frosty and clear. Above the dirty, dim streets, above the black roofs, there was a dark, starry sky. Pierre, just looking at the sky, did not feel the offensive baseness of everything earthly in comparison with the height at which his soul was located. Upon entering Arbat Square, a huge expanse of starry dark sky opened up to Pierre’s eyes. Almost in the middle of this sky above Prechistensky Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides with stars, but differing from everyone else in its proximity to the earth, white light, and long, raised tail, stood a huge bright comet of 1812, the same comet that foreshadowed as they said, all sorts of horrors and the end of the world. But in Pierre this bright star with a long radiant tail did not arouse any terrible feeling. Opposite Pierre, joyfully, eyes wet with tears, looked at this bright star, which, as if, with inexpressible speed, flying through immeasurable spaces along a parabolic line, suddenly, like an arrow pierced into the ground, stuck here in one place chosen by it, in the black sky, and stopped, energetically raising her tail up, glowing and playing with her white light between countless other twinkling stars. It seemed to Pierre that this star fully corresponded to what was in his soul, which had blossomed towards a new life, softened and encouraged.

From the end of 1811, increased armament and concentration of forces in Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces - millions of people (including those who transported and fed the army) moved from West to East, to the borders of Russia, to which, in the same way, from 1811 year, Russian forces were gathering. On June 12, the forces of Western Europe crossed the borders of Russia, and war began, that is, an event contrary to human reason and all human nature took place. Millions of people committed each other, against each other, such countless atrocities, deceptions, betrayals, thefts, forgeries and the issuance of false banknotes, robberies, arson and murders, which for centuries will not be collected by the chronicle of all the courts of the world and for which, during this period of time, people those who committed them did not look at them as crimes.
What caused this extraordinary event? What were the reasons for it? Historians say with naive confidence that the reasons for this event were the insult inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, non-compliance with the continental system, Napoleon's lust for power, Alexander's firmness, diplomatic mistakes, etc.
Consequently, it was only necessary for Metternich, Rumyantsev or Talleyrand, between the exit and the reception, to try hard and write a more skillful piece of paper, or for Napoleon to write to Alexander: Monsieur mon frere, je consens a rendre le duche au duc d "Oldenbourg, [My lord brother, I agree return the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg.] - and there would be no war.
It is clear that this was how the matter seemed to contemporaries. It is clear that Napoleon thought that the cause of the war was the intrigues of England (as he said this on the island of St. Helena); It is clear that it seemed to the members of the English House that the cause of the war was Napoleon’s lust for power; that it seemed to the Prince of Oldenburg that the cause of the war was the violence committed against him; that it seemed to the merchants that the cause of the war was the continental system that was ruining Europe, that it seemed to the old soldiers and generals that the main reason was the need to use them in business; the legitimists of that time that it was necessary to restore les bons principes [good principles], and the diplomats of that time that everything happened because the alliance of Russia with Austria in 1809 was not skillfully hidden from Napoleon and that the memorandum was awkwardly written for No. 178. It is clear that these and a countless, infinite number of reasons, the number of which depends on the countless differences in points of view, seemed to contemporaries; but for us, our descendants, who contemplate the enormity of the event in its entirety and delve into its simple and terrible meaning, these reasons seem insufficient. It is incomprehensible to us that millions of Christian people killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was power-hungry, Alexander was firm, the politics of England was cunning and the Duke of Oldenburg was offended. It is impossible to understand what connection these circumstances have with the very fact of murder and violence; why, due to the fact that the duke was offended, thousands of people from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of the Smolensk and Moscow provinces and were killed by them.
For us, descendants - not historians, not carried away by the process of research and therefore contemplating the event with unobscured common sense, its causes appear in innumerable quantities. The more we delve into the search for reasons, the more of them are revealed to us, and every single reason or a whole series of reasons seems to us equally fair in itself, and equally false in its insignificance in comparison with the enormity of the event, and equally false in its invalidity ( without the participation of all other coincident causes) to produce the accomplished event. The same reason as Napoleon’s refusal to withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and give back the Duchy of Oldenburg seems to us to be the desire or reluctance of the first French corporal to enter secondary service: for, if he did not want to go to service, and the other would not, and the third , and the thousandth corporal and soldier, there would have been so many fewer people in Napoleon’s army, and there could have been no war.
If Napoleon had not been offended by the demand to retreat beyond the Vistula and had not ordered the troops to advance, there would have been no war; but if all the sergeants had not wished to enter secondary service, there could not have been a war. There also could not have been a war if there had not been the intrigues of England, and there had not been the Prince of Oldenburg and the feeling of insult in Alexander, and there would have been no autocratic power in Russia, and there would have been no French Revolution and the subsequent dictatorship and empire, and all that , which produced the French Revolution, and so on. Without one of these reasons nothing could happen. Therefore, all these reasons - billions of reasons - coincided in order to produce what was. And, therefore, nothing was the exclusive cause of the event, and the event had to happen only because it had to happen. Millions of people, having renounced their human feelings and their reason, had to go to the East from the West and kill their own kind, just as several centuries ago crowds of people went from East to West, killing their own kind.
The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose word it seemed that an event would happen or not happen, were as little arbitrary as the action of each soldier who went on a campaign by lot or by recruitment. This could not be otherwise because in order for the will of Napoleon and Alexander (those people on whom the event seemed to depend) to be fulfilled, the coincidence of countless circumstances was necessary, without one of which the event could not have happened. It was necessary that millions of people, in whose hands there was real power, soldiers who shot, carried provisions and guns, it was necessary that they agreed to fulfill this will of individual and weak people and were brought to this by countless complex, varied reasons.
Fatalism in history is inevitable to explain irrational phenomena (that is, those whose rationality we do not understand). The more we try to rationally explain these phenomena in history, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible they become for us.

FSB against the people

The coverage of specific terrorist acts by some media sometimes carries a potential no less dangerous than the terrorists themselves. In this regard, the interests of ensuring public safety are met by productive interaction between the media and the authorities, including law enforcement agencies.
N. P. Patrushev
From a speech at the international scientific and practical conference “International terrorism: origins and counteraction.” St. Petersburg, April 18, 2001

N The explosion that took place in Ryazan leads the public to believe that the FSB is behind the explosions. For the “war party” this is another indication that a big war in Chechnya needs to start immediately. It is no coincidence that it was September 24, as if the explosion had taken place in Ryazan, that a tough speech was scheduled for Putin and all the security ministers.
On September 24, as in a well-planned performance, Russian politicians begin to unanimously demand war. Patrushev reports that the terrorists who carried out the bombings of residential buildings in Moscow are currently in Chechnya. We know this is a lie. Patrushev does not indicate sources of information, since there are none. Patrushev does not provide evidence. His press secretary Zdanovich spoke only about the possible or probable departure of terrorists to Chechnya (or to the CIS countries). But Patrushev needs to start a war, and he claims that Chechnya has become a breeding ground for terrorism.
<…>The newspaper "Vek" publishes an interview with the vice-president of the college of military experts, Alexander Vladimirov, who believes that the best way out now is a small, victorious war in Chechnya. In his opinion, the sanitary cordon around Chechnya proposed by Putin is good, but this should only be the first step, since a cordon for the sake of a cordon is a pointless exercise. (Vladimirov’s point of view, of course, was taken into account and they began immediately with the second step - a full-scale war.)
The last decisive vote for the war was cast by Prime Minister Putin, who was in Astana: “The Russian state does not intend to let the situation go on the brakes. (...) The recent unprovoked attacks on the territories adjacent to Chechnya, the barbaric actions that led to casualties among civilians, have placed terrorists not only outside the framework of the law, but also outside the framework of human society and modern civilization.” Airstrikes are carried out “exclusively on militant bases, and this will continue no matter where the terrorists are. (...) We will pursue terrorists everywhere. If, sorry, we catch them in the toilet, then we’ll soak them in the toilet.”
The mood in society in those days was best characterized by the fact that after the catchphrase “we’ll throw it in the toilet,” Putin’s rating increased. The propaganda campaign of the war supporters achieved the desired result. According to a public opinion poll conducted by the All-Russian Central Institute of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), almost half of Russians were convinced that the explosions in Russian cities were carried out by Basayev’s militants, another third blamed the Wahhabis led by Khattab. 88% of respondents were afraid of becoming a victim of a terrorist attack. 64% agreed that all Chechens should be expelled from the country. The same percentage supported massive bombing of Chechnya.
The house bombings changed public opinion. A small, victorious war seemed the natural and only way to combat terrorism. The besotted country did not yet know that the terrorists were not Chechens, and that the war would not be small and victorious.
Let's pay attention to the glaring lack of logic. The Chechen leadership denies any involvement in the terrorist attacks. Zdanovich confirms that there are no Chechens among the perpetrators of the terrorist attack, but points out that the terrorists “probably” fled to Chechnya. From this “probably” a “Chechen trace” of terrorists is deduced, on the basis of which, in turn, Chechnya is now starting to be bombed. Aslan Maskhadov declares his readiness to negotiate, but he is not heard. It is important for the FSB to drag Russia into the war as soon as possible so that the Russian presidential elections take place against the backdrop of a big war and so that the new president who comes to power inherits the war along with the political consequences that it carries: the president’s reliance on the security forces. Only through war can the FSB finally seize power in the country.<…>
<…>Putin and Patrushev were not allowed to forget the Ryazan history until the presidential elections. On the night of October 4, 1999, three GRU officers went missing in the Nadterechny region of Chechnya - Colonel Zuriko Ivanov, Major Viktor Pakhomov, Senior Lieutenant Alexei Galkin and GRU officer, Chechen by nationality, Vesami Abdulaev. The leader of the group, Zuriko Ivanov, graduated from the Ryazan Airborne Forces School, joined special forces intelligence, served in the 15th Special Forces Brigade, known in Afghanistan, and then in the North Caucasus Military District. He led the personal security of Doku Zavgaev, associated with Moscow. Shortly before the start of the second Chechen war, Ivanov was transferred to the central office in Moscow. His new position did not involve raids on hostile rear areas, but as soon as preparations began for a ground operation in Chechnya, Ivanov was needed in the conflict zone.
On October 19 in Grozny, the head of the press center of the Chechen armed forces, Vakha Ibragimov, on behalf of the military command, told the assembled journalists that the GRU officers who had gone over to the Chechens “initiatively made contact with the Chechen military” and expressed a desire to cooperate with the Chechen authorities. Ibragimov claimed that GRU officers and their agent were ready to provide information about the organizers of the explosions in Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk. The Russian Ministry of Defense called the statement of the Chechen side a provocation aimed at discrediting the internal policy of the Russian leadership and the actions of federal forces in the North Caucasus. However, at the end of December 1999, the GRU officially recognized the death of the group leader Ivanov: the headless corpse of a man and the blood-stained identity card of Colonel Zuriko Amiranovich Ivanov were handed over to the federal forces (the officer’s severed head was found later). On March 24, 2000, Zdanovich reported that the entire group of GRU officers was executed by the Chechens.
On January 6, 2000, The Independent newspaper published in London published an article by correspondent Elena Womack, “Russian agents blew up houses in Moscow”:
“The Independent has obtained a videotape of a Russian officer captured by Chechens “confessing” that Russian intelligence services carried out the apartment bombings in Moscow that sparked the current war in Chechnya and brought Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin. On tape filmed by a Turkish journalist (Sedat Aral) last month, before Grozny was finally cut off by Russian troops, a captured Russian identifies himself as GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate) officer Alexei Galtin (Galkin). The bearded prisoner admits, and this is confirmed by his own documents shown by the Chechens, that he is “a senior lieutenant of special forces, special forces of the General Staff of the Russian Federation.” The Ministry of Defense yesterday was checking whether such a GRU officer actually exists. “Even if he exists, you understand what methods could have been used on him in captivity,” said one junior officer, who asked not to be named.
Colonel Yakov Firsov from the Ministry of Defense formally stated the following: “Chechen bandits feel that the end is coming for them, and in the information war they use any dirty tricks. This is a provocation. This is a lie. The Russian armed forces protect people. It is impossible to imagine that they are at war with their own people.”

Scary film
On the videotape, Lieutenant Galtin (Galkin?) says that he was captured on the Chechen-Dagestan border while on a mission to mine the area. “I did not take part in the bombings of houses in Moscow and Dagestan, but I have information about this. I know who is responsible for the explosions in Moscow (and Dagestan). The FSB (Federal Security Service) together with the GRU were responsible for the explosions in Volgodonsk and Moscow.” After that, he named other GRU officers. About three hundred people were killed when four high-rise buildings were bombed by terrorists in September. These terrorist attacks gave Mr. Putin, who had become prime minister a month earlier, the opportunity to start a new war in Chechnya.
ISF news agency photographer Sedat Aral said he shot the videotape in a bunker in the city of Grozny, where he met with the head of the Chechen security service, Abu Movsaev. Mr. Movsaev said that the Chechens can prove that they were not involved in the explosions of apartment buildings.
The Russian public supports the “anti-terrorist campaign” in Chechnya, which soared the popularity of its author, Mr. Putin, that Boris Yeltsin resigned early to make way for his hand-picked successor. The war began to the obvious benefit of Mr. Putin. The former head of the Russian Security Service is now ready to realize his presidential ambitions.”
<…>
The French newspaper Le Monde also wrote about the danger for Putin of revelations about the involvement of the special services in the September explosions: “Having strengthened his popularity and won elections to the State Duma as a result of the war unleashed against the Chechen people, Vladimir Putin understands that there are only two reasons could prevent him from becoming president in the March elections. These are major military failures and losses in manpower in Chechnya, as well as the recognition of the possible involvement of Russian special services in the bombings of residential buildings that killed about 300 people in September last year and served as the official justification for the launch of an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya.

Death of Lazovsky
It is interesting that neither Lazovsky nor any of his people were interrogated in the case of the explosions in Moscow, although it could be assumed that the same people were behind these terrorist attacks as those behind the terrorist attacks of 1994-1996. Only in the spring of 2000 did the prosecutor's office agree to arrest Lazovsky. At the same time, those who stood behind Lazovsky, and it is obvious that behind Lazovsky stood primarily the Moscow FSB Directorate, decided not to allow Lazovsky to be detained. According to operational information, immediately after an arrest warrant was issued for Lazovsky, he was killed: on April 28, 2000, on the threshold of the Assumption Cathedral in his village, he was shot from a Kalashnikov assault rifle with a silencer and an optical sight. Four bullets, one of which hit the throat, were fatal. The shooting was carried out from the bushes from a distance of approximately 150 meters. For some reason, the jeep with security, which had been relentlessly following Lazovsky lately, was not nearby. The killer dropped his weapon and fled. Someone dragged the bloody body to a nearby hospital and laid it on a bench. Local police brought in a doctor from the Odintsovo clinic to examine the body. The documents for examining the dead man and examining the scene of the incident were drawn up extremely sloppily and unprofessionally, and this gave rise to the claim that it was not Lazovsky who was killed, but his double.
On the evening of May 22, 2000, a small detachment of militants was ambushed by GRU special forces in the area between the villages of Serzhen-Yurt and Shali. As a result of the fleeting battle, ten militants were killed and the rest were scattered. Among those killed was 38-year-old field commander and head of military counterintelligence of Chechnya Abu Movsaev, who interrogated senior lieutenant Galkin and probably had additional information about the explosions. Local residents said that in May Movsaev secretly came to spend the night with relatives living in Shali several times. One of the members of the local administration reported this to the FSB commissioner. He did not take action. When GRU special forces tried to capture the field commander, the FSB opposed it. A scandal broke out, the case was transferred to Moscow, where they decided to take Movsaev. However, he was not taken alive.<…>
State Duma deputy Vladimir Volkov also believed that the September explosions were the work of the special services: “For two times in a row, presidential elections seem to coincide by chance with the escalation of events in Chechnya. This time, the Chechen campaign was preceded by terrorist attacks in Moscow, Buynaksk, Volgodonsk, Rostov... But for some reason, an explosion of a residential building in Ryazan, now passed off as a training exercise, went wrong. As a military man, I know that not a single exercise is conducted with real explosive devices, and that the local police and the FSB must have known about the exercises. Alas, in Ryazan everything was different, and the press is already openly saying that all “Chechen” terrorist attacks in Russian cities are the work of the special services, who were preparing a “small war” for Putin. The search for an answer to these suspicions is still to come, but today it is clear that instead of a white horse, Putin was given a red one, excessively sprinkled with people’s blood.”

Cover documents
Celebrating in their own way the anniversary of the explosions in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk, FSB officers, known from “cover documents” as Major Ismailov and Captain Fedorov, carried out a terrorist attack on August 8, 2000 in the underground passage of Pushkin Square. 13 people were killed, more than a hundred were injured of varying severity. Not far from the explosion site, specialists from the Moscow FSB discovered two more explosive devices and shot them with a hydraulic cannon.
The explosion on Pushkinskaya was a shot in the heart. “The as yet unknown attackers very precisely chose the place for their action,” Vitaly Portnikov wrote on August 12 in the Kyiv newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli. - In order to understand what Pushkinskaya Square is for a resident of the Russian capital, you must, of course, be a Muscovite. Because Red Square, the Alexander Garden, the underground complex in Okhotny Ryad, the old Arbat are more likely places for tourist walks. Muscovites make appointments on Pushkinskaya (...). The old cinema "Russia", turned into "Pushkinsky" and the ultra-modern "Kodak-Kinomir", a place for youth "hangouts", the first McDonald's in the USSR and the oriental snack bar of the "Yelki-Palki" system, coffee shops and the office of "Mobile Television Systems", " Lenkom" and the Doronin Moscow Art Theater, boutiques in the "Actor" gallery and the most fashionable restaurant of Russian national cuisine among the political elite, "Pushkin" - it was here that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov negotiated with the Minister of Press Mikhail Lesin about the fate of his TV channel TV-Center... Pushkinskaya is not just a city center, a square or a metro station. This is the habitat (...). Blowing up a terrorist's habitat is more important than even planting a bomb under a residential building. Because the house may turn out to be a neighbor’s, but the habitat is always yours.”
Yuri Luzhkov hastily tried to blame this explosion on the Chechens: “This is 100 percent Chechnya.” Tired of constant accusations, the Chechens decided to pull the mayor back this time. The head of the Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, expressed indignation that the Chechens were again being blamed for the explosion without evidence. Kadyrov's representative in the Russian government, former Foreign Minister in the administration of Dzhokhar Dudayev Shamil Beno threatened a demonstration of Chechens in Moscow, and Chairman of the State Council of Chechnya Malik Saidullaev promised an impressive reward for information about the true organizers of the explosion. Aslan Maskhadov also dissociated himself from the terrorist attack and expressed condolences to the Russians.
On August 5, 2000, twelve people - members of the special group of Andrei Aleksandrovich Morev, who arrived at Petrovka, 38 for instructions before the next operation - witnessed a conversation between Ismailov and Fedorov about work on Pushkinskaya Square. Three days later, a terrorist attack actually took place there, and Morev identified two FSB officers in the sketches.
Years will pass, maybe even decades. Russia, of course, will be different. It will have a different political elite, a different political leadership. And if we are still alive, our children will ask us: why were you silent? When you were blown up in Moscow, Volgodonsk, Buinaksk, Ryazan - why were you silent? Why did you behave like guinea pigs in a laboratory?
We were not silent. We yelled, screamed, wrote... Residents of house No. 14/16 on Novoselov Street filed a lawsuit against the FSB. The letter sent to the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said: “A monstrous experiment was performed on us, in which two hundred and forty innocent people were assigned the role of extras. “All of us suffered not only severe mental trauma, but also irreparable harm to our health.” The Ryazan residents were supported by the administration of the Ryazan region. However, the matter did not go beyond words; the collective statement was lost in the prosecutor's office.
On March 18, deputies of the YABLOKO faction Sergei Ivanenko and Yuri Shchekochikhin prepared a draft State Duma resolution on the parliamentary request and. O. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov “On the discovery of an explosive in Ryazan on September 22, 1999 and the circumstances of its investigation.” Ivanenko and Shchekochikhin suggested that State Duma deputies get answers to the following questions: “At what stage is the criminal case regarding the discovery of an explosive in Ryazan on September 22, 1999; whether an examination of the found substance was carried out; who gave the order for the exercise and when, what were the goals and objectives of the exercise; what means and substances - explosives or simulating them - were used during the exercises; to check the publications of Novaya Gazeta No. 10 of 2000 that hexogen was stored in a weapons and ammunition warehouse of one of the Airborne Forces training units, packaged in sugar bags.”
The draft request also stated that the leadership of the FSB changed its official position within two days from the date of the incident. According to the first version, on September 22, 1999, a terrorist attack was successfully prevented. According to the second, exercises were held in Ryazan to test the combat readiness of law enforcement agencies. “A number of the facts presented cast doubt on the official version of the events that took place in Ryazan,” the request said. Information related to the exercise is closed. The materials of the criminal case initiated by the FSB Directorate for the Ryazan Region on the discovery of explosives are not available. The persons who planted the imitation explosive device, as well as those who issued the order to conduct the exercises, were not named. “The FSB leadership’s statement that the substance found in Ryazan consisted of granulated sugar does not stand up to criticism.” In particular, the device used to analyze the substance found indicated the presence of hexogen and was completely functional, and the detonator of the explosive device was not an imitation.
Alas, the majority of Duma members voted not to make the request. The pro-government Unity faction, the People's Deputy group, part of the Regions of Russia faction and part of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) opposed the request. The request was supported by YABLOKO, the Union of Right Forces (SPS), the Communists (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and the Agricultural-Industrial Group (APG). As a result, supporters of Shchekochikhin and Ivanenko received 103 parliamentary votes (with 226 required). For some reason, members of the Russian parliament were not interested in the truth about the September explosions.
The second attempt to put the issue to a vote, made on March 31, brought Shchekochikhin and Ivanenko closer to the goal, but was not crowned with victory. When voting at the plenary meeting of the Duma, despite the support of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, APG and YABLOKO, as well as partial support of the Fatherland - All Russia (OVR) and SPS factions, the draft request received 197 votes against 137 with one abstention. Not a single person from the Unity faction voted “for”.

NTV and Ryazan
On March 16, 2000, Zdanovich indicated in one of his interviews that, according to information available to the FSB, journalist Nikolai Nikolaev, who hosts the “Independent Investigation” series on NTV, intends to conduct an investigation of the Ryazan exercises in the studio in the coming days, even before the presidential elections NTV. The program was scheduled for March 24. It is not surprising that a few days earlier the news that had been awaited for many months arrived. On March 21, the Federal News Agency (FAN) broadcast a message about the results of an examination of sugar samples found in Ryazan on September 22, 1999. Information came to FAN from the Ryazan region, from the head of the FSB Directorate for the Ryazan region, Major General Sergeev. According to him, the examination established that the bags found contained sugar without any admixture of explosives. “As a result of the studies of sugar samples, no traces of TNT, hexogen, nitroglycerin and other explosives were found,” the experts reported in their conclusion. In addition, according to Sergeev, the examination confirmed that the explosive device found along with bags of sugar was a dummy. “Consequently, we can conclude that this device was not explosive, since it did not contain an explosive charge or a means of detonation,” the conclusion said.
It gradually became clear that the FSB was trying to close the criminal case before Nikolaev’s program and the presidential elections. The criminal case, initiated on September 23, 1999 by the head of the investigative department of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for the Ryazan region, Lieutenant Colonel Maksimov, was terminated on September 27 after Patrushev’s statement about the “exercise”. However, on December 2, i.e., more than two months later, the Prosecutor General’s Office considered that the criminal case was terminated prematurely, and, having canceled the resolution of the Ryazan FSB Directorate of September 27, resumed the investigation, making it clear that the FSB was not entirely clear with the version of the “exercises.” things are going well. True, the “follow-up investigation” was entrusted not to an independent investigation (there is no such thing), but to an interested party - the FSB, the structure accused of planning the terrorist attack. And yet the case was not closed.
The Ryazan FSB Directorate again requested from the FSB laboratory in Moscow the results of a full examination of the substance that was in the sugar bags and the mechanical device found with them. On March 15, 2000, the FSB received a long-awaited answer from Moscow (which the management had hoped for): “It has been established that the substance in all samples (taken from three bags) is sucrose - the basis of sugar obtained from beet and cane raw materials.
In terms of chemical composition and appearance, the substance under study corresponds to sugar in the form of a food product. No traces of explosives were found in the samples presented. The initiating device could not be used as a means of explosion, because it does not contain an explosive charge. Therefore, there was no real threat to the residents.” This means there are no signs of “terrorism.”
“In my opinion, we have received sufficiently compelling reasons to terminate the case due to the educational nature of the events that took place on September 22, 1999 in a house on Novoselov Street,” said investigator Maksimov, who initiated the case, in an interview on March 21, 2000.

Expert Battle
Now it was necessary to disavow the results of the examination conducted by Tkachenko. This honor also fell to Maksimov on March 21: “The analysis was carried out by the head of the IT (engineering and technical department) Yuri Vasilyevich Tkachenko. On his hands, as it later turned out, after a day's duty there were traces of plasticite, which included hexogen. It should be noted that such a “background” in the form of microparticles can be present on the skin for a long time - up to three months. The purity of the analysis could only be achieved when working with disposable gloves. Alas, they are not included in the working kit of an explosives specialist, and there is no money to purchase them. We came to the conclusion that this is the only reason why the police “made a diagnosis” - the presence of an explosive.”
This is probably exactly what Maksimov wrote in the accompanying documentation to the Prosecutor General’s Office, explaining the need to close the case against the FSB under the article “terrorism”. We have no right to demand heroism from the investigator. Maksimov, like all of us, has a family. And going against the leadership of the FSB was impractical and risky. However, it should be noted that Maksimov’s opinion differs from the point of view of Tkachenko, who cannot be suspected of interest in this issue. Tkachenko’s integrity could bring him nothing but trouble.
The Ryazan department of explosives specialists, led by Tkachenko, was unique not only for Ryazan, but also for all surrounding regions. It employed 13 professional sappers who had extensive work experience, who had repeatedly taken advanced training courses in Moscow at the Explosion Testing scientific and technical center and who passed special exams every two years. Tkachenko claimed that the technology in his department is world class. The gas analyzer used to analyze the substance found - a device costing about 20 thousand dollars - was completely in working order (it could not have been otherwise, since the life of a sapper depends on the serviceability of the equipment). According to its technical characteristics, the gas analyzer is highly reliable and accurate, so the results of the analysis showing the presence of hexogen vapor in the contents of the bags should not raise doubts. Consequently, the composition of the imitation charge included a combat, and not a training, explosive. The detonator, neutralized by explosives specialists, according to Tkachenko, was also made at a professional level and was not a dummy.
Theoretically, an error could occur if the equipment was not properly maintained and if the gas analyzer “retained” traces of a previous study. Answering a question asked about this, Tkachenko said the following: “Maintenance of the gas analyzer is carried out only by a narrow specialist and strictly on schedule: there are planned works, there are preventive checks, since there is a source of constant radiation in the device.” “Traces” could not remain because in the practice of any laboratory, the determination of hexogen vapor is a rather rare case. Tkachenko and his employees could not recall cases when they had to determine hexogen with the device.
On March 20, residents of a house on Novoselov Street gathered to record the “Independent Investigation” program in the NTV studio. Representatives of the FSB arrived on television with them. The program aired on the 24th. The public television investigation was attended by Alexander Zdanovich, First Deputy Head of the FSB Investigation Department Stanislav Voronov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Oleg Kalugin, Savostyanov, head of the Ryazan FSB Directorate Sergeev, FSB investigators and experts, independent experts, lawyers, human rights activists and psychologists.
Speaking without masks and without weapons, FSB officers obviously lost the battle with the population. The examination of sugar, carried out for almost six months, looked anecdotal. “If you claim that there was sugar in the bags, then the criminal case on terrorism charges should be dropped. But the criminal case has not yet been closed. That means there was no sugar there,” exclaimed lawyer Pavel Astakhov, who did not know that the case would be closed on the 21st. It was obvious that other bags were sent to Moscow for re-examination, not the ones found in Ryazan. But no one could prove this obviousness.
Transvzryvprom explosives expert Rafael Gilmanov, who was present in the hall, confirmed that hexogen is completely impossible to confuse with sugar. Even in appearance they are not similar. The expert called the version of the FSB investigators that during the first examination the dirty suitcase of the pyrotechnician “gave a trace” was implausible. Equally implausible were the claims of FSB representatives that sappers called to the scene mistook the dummy for a real explosive device. FSB officers explained that General Sergeev, who reported about the fuse and was now present in the hall, “is not a sophisticated expert in the field of explosive devices” and on September 22 was simply mistaken. For some reason, General Sergeev was not offended by the accusations of unprofessionalism, although on September 22 he made a public statement about the fuse, based on the conclusions of experts subordinate to him, whose professionalism there was no doubt.
It turned out that there were many military men in the hall. They confidently stated that what happened in Ryazan did not resemble even the most “closest” combat exercises. Preparation for combat exercises is always accompanied by mandatory preparatory measures, in particular, in case of possible emergencies, emergency medical care, medicines, dressings, and warm clothes are prepared. Even the most important exercises, if they involve actions among the civilian population, must be coordinated with local leadership and interested departments. In this case, nothing was prepared or agreed upon. This is not how exercises are conducted, one of the residents of the house, a professional military man, categorically stated.
In general, the arguments of the FSB officers were so ridiculous that one of the residents summed up the results in his own way: “We don’t need to hang noodles on our ears.” Here is a short excerpt from the televised debate:

"People: The FSB Investigation Department opened a criminal case. Did it file a case against itself?
FSB: A criminal case has been initiated based on the discovery.
People: But if these were exercises, then for what reason?
FSB: You didn't listen to the end. The exercise was conducted to test the interaction of various law enforcement agencies. At the time when the criminal case was initiated, neither the Ryazan police nor the federal authorities knew that this was an exercise...
People: So who is the case brought against?
FSB: I say again - a criminal case was initiated based on the discovery.
People: For what reason? In fact, the exercises in Ryazan?
FSB: It is useless to explain to a person who does not understand criminal procedural law...
People: What was the safety of the citizens who spent the whole night on the street, what was the safety here for physical and mental health? And secondly, you are outraged that telephone terrorists are calling and threatening explosions, but how are you different from them?
FSB: What is ensuring the safety of citizens? This is some kind of final effect when the explosions don’t go off...
People: I am a former military man myself. I’ve conducted exercises for 28 years, you know how many, and what respectable people, generals, say here about the exercises, you know, makes my ears wither!
FSB: As a former military man, you probably conducted military exercises. We have a special service, and this service uses special forces and means on the basis of the law on operational-investigative activities...
(We will intervene in the dispute between the people and the FSB and once again emphasize that the law “On operational-search activities in the Russian Federation” only says about the exercises that they cannot be carried out to the detriment of the population.)
People: If someone recorded the progress of the exercises, then where are these people?
FSB: If, of course, we could increase our personnel by 10 times, then of course...
<…>
According to Zdanovich, the FSB is currently investigating a criminal case regarding the September events in Ryazan. An absurdity, probably only possible in Russia: the FSB is investigating a criminal case based on an exercise conducted by itself! But a case can only be initiated based on alleged illegal actions. How, then, should we treat all the previous statements by high-ranking intelligence agencies that there were no violations of the law during the exercises? Residents of building No. 14 tried to file a lawsuit against the FSB with the Ryazan prosecutor's office, demanding compensation for moral damage caused. The residents were told that, according to procedural rules, they could only bring a claim against the specific person who gave the order to conduct the exercise. Six times Zdanovich and Sergeev were asked the same question: who gave the order to conduct exercises in Ryazan? Six times Zdanovich and Sergeev avoided answering, citing the interests of the investigation. (...) The lack of truthful information gave rise to the version that the special services really wanted to blow up a residential building in Ryazan to justify the offensive of federal troops in Chechnya and to raise the morale of the soldiers.

Main witness
“I saw the contents of the bags, it doesn’t look like sugar at all,” said Alexey Kartofelnikov (the same driver who discovered the bags. - Ed.) in conclusion. “I am sure that there was not sugar in the bags, but real hexogen.” Other residents of the house agree with him. So, I think, it would be in the interests of the FSB itself to name who signed the order to conduct the exercises, which undermined the trust and prestige of the Russian intelligence services.
The practical result of the meeting in the studio was the intervention of lawyer Astakhov in the old class action lawsuit of Ryazan residents. The injured party asked the Prosecutor General's Office to explain to her the purpose of the operation, as well as to determine the amount and form of compensation for moral damage. This time the answer came suspiciously quickly: “The FSB officers acted within their competence,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said. And it’s clear why she was in a hurry. A press conference by Zdanovich was planned for March 24, at which the FSB leadership planned to “attack” the media, and presidential elections were scheduled for March 26, 2000.
After the shameful defeat of Zdanovich and his colleagues in the Nikolaev studio, the leadership of the FSB decided not to participate in open debates with the population anymore and not to travel to NTV. Moreover, apparently, it was precisely during these fatal days for the entire country that the FSB decided to begin the systematic destruction of NTV. On March 26, the night after the presidential elections, about the danger of NTV being closed by the authorities in connection with the showing of Nikolaev’s program “Ryazan Sugar - a special services exercise or a failed explosion?” Boris Nemtsov openly stated in Yevgeny Kiselev’s “Itogi”:
“I don’t know what will happen to NTV. After one of the authors, I think his last name is Nikolaev, outlined his version of the explosions in Moscow and other cities. I think that a real threat hangs over NTV... I consider it my duty to defend NTV if there are any attempts to close it. And I do not rule out that such a possibility exists. At least in relation to a number of journalists, such attempts were made, perhaps not by Putin, but by his entourage.”
In an informal setting, the FSB generals admitted that they had made a decision to “oust out” the leaders of NTV Gusinsky, Igor Malashenko and Kiselev from Russia.<…>

The terrorist attacks in the St. Petersburg subway, which coincided with Putin’s visit to St. Petersburg, gave rise to many versions, and, not surprisingly, most of them blame the Kremlin in one way or another. To understand what was happening, the Russian Monitor correspondent asked several questions to political analyst Vladimir Golyshev.

Vladimir, today, after the tragic events that claimed the lives of eleven people, the public is almost unanimous in denying the official version of the incident and is confident that the explosion in the St. Petersburg metro is not a terrorist attack, but Operation Ryazan Sugar 2.0. You are no exception. Isn’t there a fairly common mistake in this, which is that people are often ready to “appoint” the guilty in advance, taking into account the bad reputation of the characters, rather than trying to objectively understand the situation?

In general, there is nothing to understand. The most interesting thing about this event is Putin’s confusion. Until now, each explosion was accompanied by something swift and fateful - war, the abolition of gubernatorial elections, loud foreign policy statements about “international terrorism.” Putin has always reacted quickly. So fast that sometimes it seemed that he was waiting for the next explosion, glancing at his watch. And they always happened on time, in the most suitable place for Putin. Always, but not this time...

Doesn't this support the theory that at least this time Putin was not in the know?

In my opinion, this is already obvious now. His press service easily swallowed the misinformation about “two explosions,” and the chicken did not have time to write a cheat sheet for him with its paw. As a result, we received a closed mouth, frightened eyes and public humiliation - in front of Lukashenko and in front of the whole world. And the most impressive thing is the frantic search for the suspect. Moreover, the first “terrorist candidate” was a colorful Russian Muslim, a former officer, a veteran of the Chechen war, working as a truck driver. Everything at once - in one bottle. It seems that the main purpose of the explosion is to trample and humiliate Putin. Destroy his plans. Make you rush around the room in search of the fifth corner. And the fact that everyone considers him to be the mastermind of the terrorist attack looks like a key element of the overall plan.

That is, after all, Putin might not have known?

Well, we all remember Putin in his natural state. He had never been as confused as he was now. Did he decide to decorate the meeting with Lukashenko in his hometown with a pyrotechnic show with human casualties? It's absurd! But no one cares about that. Everyone blames Putin! And this has its own ant truth. “Have you been singing everything? This is the case. So go and dance!” And Putin dances. Doctors call this symptom “restless legs syndrome.” We saw the same dance two years ago - immediately after the murder of Nemtsov, when Putin disappeared for 10 days. By the way, the murder on the bridge, which everyone unanimously blamed on Putin and Kadyrov, was just as strange as this explosion.

That is, it was someone’s “inside job”, the work of the Russian special services (FSO, FSB), and they simply forgot to bring the boss up to date?

We can only guess. But in both cases, Putin suffered damage. And in the age-old interdepartmental conflict between cops and security officers, Putin’s are the cops (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Investigative Committee, Russian Guard, FSO), and the security officers are a kind of “disinherited knights.” So, in searching for an “anti-Putin conspiracy by the security forces,” you should focus on the door set on fire by Pavlensky.

What's wrong with the official version?

But she’s not there. Or rather, they are too “mobile” to take her seriously. Then two explosions, then one. Either a man in a Budenovka sneaked into the Fuhrer’s bunker, or the severed head gave them a confession. There is no motive for the crime. No clear picture. Most of all it is like a game of cat and mouse. The investigation is being carried out by the Investigative Committee of Russia, loyal to Putin. People who have much higher qualifications and a unique sense of humor are clearly trying to make them look like idiots.

Undoubtedly, this cannot but raise questions, but this does not discount the fact that just over a month ago, ISIS released an official statement in which they promised to “set fire” to Russia. Why are you sweeping away the Islamist trace?

You have puzzled me so much with this question that I was even speechless for a while... Let’s put it this way: because the play “You are being blown up by ISIS” is staged and played differently. And this performance is called “Russia is ruled by an impotent man.”

That is, if we continue your idea that those forces that brought Putin to power on a wave of fear, after a series of terrorist attacks in the fall-winter of 1999, today again decided to play out the proven scenario in order to remove him?

You can probably say that. We don't know anything for sure. And we can't know. But if you believe that Russia was blown up by the FSB in 1999, then yes, today the FSB is blowing up Putin. In any case, it is the security officers who have every reason to feel personal hostility towards him. The security officers and Dmitry Medvedev. In both cases, Putin appears to have failed to live up to his commitments. I think, by any standards, such behavior is punishable.

Isn't it too conspiratorial? Are there any analogies here with the conspiracy of the “all-powerful Freemasons”: supporters of this theory in the United States are still convinced that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the work of the CIA on the orders of George Bush?

I will be happy to return to the solid ground of facts. Only then don’t ask me about “ISIS fighters”, about the legendary “Ukrainian DRG” and about the rest of the heroes of Ole Lukoe’s fairy tales. We have an explosion. And there is Putin’s panic. This explosion, unlike all previous ones, was clearly not in his favor. Whoever organized it, the target is drawn not on the map of Russia, but on Putin’s forehead.

Interviewed by Ekaterina Maslova

Did the US decide to ignore the reason for the 1999 bombings, which propelled a KGB bureaucrat to the highest position he never left?

It is impossible to appreciate today's events in Russia without understanding the mysterious series of bombings in 1999 that killed 300 people and set the stage for Vladimir Putin to become Russia's dictator for life.

The bombings changed the course of Russian post-Soviet history. They were blamed on Chechens, who denied involvement. After initial success, Russia launched a new invasion of Chechnya. Putin, who had just been named prime minister, led the invasion and his popularity soared and he was elected president.

On July 14, 2016, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for documents about the bombings to the State Department, CIA, and FBI. I wanted to know whether the US had information to support the view - very common in Russia - that the Russian government itself carried out the bombings to bring Putin to power. The responses I received indicated that the United States had strong evidence that Russian authorities were responsible for the bombings, but chose to ignore it.

The explosions affect relations between Russia and the United States to this day. The policy of self-censorship in the case of the bombings was applied to every crime of the Putin era where there was evidence that the real author was the regime. The 1999 house bombings were followed by the 2002 Dubrovka Theater hostage taking, the 2004 Beslan school massacre, the murder of former Federal Security Service (FSB) agent Alesandr Litvinenko in London, and the murders of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow. In each case, U.S. policy was to ignore evidence of official involvement and move on. This is what made Obama's “reset” policy possible and helps explain why President Donald Trump, when he was a candidate, questioned Putin's responsibility for killing journalists and opposition figures, and later, when he became president, justified Russian crimes with the statement “We kill people too.” .

One of the things I wanted to know as a result of my inquiry was the US assessment of who was responsible for the bombings. The State Department provided six documents, but none on the assessment. I made an updated request, and on March 22, the State Department responded that documents related to the United States assessment of the bombings would remain classified. The CIA refused to provide any documents, and the FBI did not write anything that was not publicly known.

In a piece called the Vaughn Index (a document used in cases where a request is denied), the State Department responded that releasing the information had the “potential to disrupt or seriously harm” relations with the Russian government that were “vital to national security.” USA". The answer did not mean that it was the assessment that could “introduce inconsistency.” The evaluation may have been hidden because it may have inadvertently revealed “sources and methods.” This tentative possibility was, however, consistent with the position that has characterized US behavior regarding the bombings since they occurred. This silence, in turn, had consequences for the entire fabric of relations between Russia and the United States. By not addressing the most important issue, the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations allowed Russia to present a false image of itself that, after a while, we ourselves believed, undermining belated efforts to deny Russian crimes and leaving us vulnerable to Russian manipulation.

The 1999 bombings were a lucky break for Yeltsin and his corrupt circle. They shifted the country's attention from Yeltsin's corruption to the Chechens, a very successful enemy. After Putin was elected president, Yeltsin was released from responsibility for all crimes committed under him, and the issue of criminal privatization of property under Yeltsin was quietly forgotten.

But there would have been fewer questions about the role of the explosions in Putin's rise to power if not for a fifth bomb, found and quickly deactivated on September 22, 1999, in the basement of a house in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow. The bomb tested positive for RDX, an explosive that had been used in four previous explosions, and had a live fuse. The building was evacuated, and Ryazan was surrounded. On September 24, the bombers were arrested. They turned out to be not Chechen terrorists, but FSB agents.

The arrest of agents who provided FSB identification and were quickly released on the orders of the FSB from Moscow required an explanation. Nikolai Patrushev, who replaced Putin as director of the FSB, announced on national television that the bomb was fake and that what happened was not an attempted terrorist attack, but a training exercise. He praised the residents of Ryazan for their vigilance.

Initially, the explanation that the bomb in Ryazan was part of a training exercise made little sense. When I went to Ryazan in April 2000, residents of this building said that it would be “idiotic” to check their vigilance after explosions in four residential buildings had already plunged Russia into a state of terror.

Former Ryazan policeman Dmitry Florin, who was on duty that night, published memories on LiveJournal (a Russian social network) of which he made it clear that Russian authorities lied when they said that the incident was a training exercise. The panic and chaos he observed were primarily consistent with only one thing - an attempt to undermine the fifth house. Almost immediately after the discovery of the bomb and the positive test for RDX, Florin wrote, the police in Ryazan were given bulletproof vests and automatic weapons and ordered to remain continuously on the street.

The central police stations in Ryazan, which were almost empty, began to resemble military headquarters. According to one police officer quoted by Florin, “it looked like an atomic bomb had fallen on the city.” The entire leadership of the Ryazan police arrived, and orders were given in a continuous stream via radio communications.

In Russia, civil defense law requires that exercises in residential areas include a plan that is pre-approved by local authorities. In Ryazan, not a single local authority was warned about the intention to conduct a “training”. For two days, local authorities, including the local FSB unit, were convinced that they were dealing with an attempted terrorist attack. Each police officer had a sketch of two of the three suspects, based on descriptions made by residents of the house who saw the individuals carrying the bags into the basement. The next day, identikit images appeared in the windows of every store in the city.

It was very important that the local FSB was not informed about the exercise. If this were truly a training exercise, local FSB agents who believed they were looking for real “terrorists” could easily shoot the FSB agents who were conducting the so-called “training” without knowing that they were part of the same organization.

Meanwhile, official Russian media, including the Kremlin information service ITAR-TASS, reported news for two days (September 23-24) that “with the help of citizens” Russia prevented a new terrorist attack. On the morning of September 24, the Russian air force began bombing Grozny, under the pretext of destroying terrorist bases. Putin, who was on a state visit to Kazakhstan, confirmed that it was an attempted attack. On the same day, Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo said at a meeting with the ministry's unit for combating organized crime that the terrorist attack had been prevented. However, at noon on September 24, three FSB agents were arrested and identified. It was now necessary to immediately change the story of the attempted terrorist attack. The head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, went on television and explained that the bomb was a dummy, and what happened was a vigilance check carried out by the FSB.

Despite its absurdity, very few were inclined to question the FSB version. This was extremely important because if the FSB planted a live RDX bomb in the basement of 14-16 Novoselov Street in Ryazan, they were almost certainly responsible for the four bombs that went off in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk that also contained RDX.

Several brave individuals tried to investigate the incident in Ryazan. When the State Duma, which was controlled by the regime, voted three times against opening an investigation into the incident, an independent public commission was created, which included several deputies, in particular Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Yushenkov was shot near his own entrance on April 17, 2003. Shchekochikhin was poisoned in July 2003. Litvinenko and Politkovskaya also investigated the bombings and were also killed. After these killings, a curtain of fear came down in Russia over the question of how Putin came to power.

The United States has not faced similar pressure, but has demonstrated that it has no inclination to raise many troubling questions about the apartment bombings and the Ryazan incident. On February 8, 2008, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in response to a question from Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina), whether there was any evidence that would link the bombings to Chechnya, replied: “We have not seen evidence linking the bombings to Chechnya.” When asked: “Do you believe the Russian government is justified in blaming Chechen groups for the bombings?” – Albright refused to answer. “The investigation into the explosions is ongoing,” she said. This response came more than four months after FSB agents were arrested for planting a bomb in Ryazan. Albright then kindly added that “terrorist attacks have no place in a democratic society.”

In fact, the documents I received pursuant to the request indicate that the State Department was not initially prepared to look objectively at the information it had about the bombings. In a report released on September 16, following the fourth apartment building bombing in Volgodonsk, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) said Putin on September 14 described Chechnya as a “giant terrorist camp.” It referred to accusations in the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that the government itself was responsible for the bombings, and wrote that “key political groups did not hesitate to try to use the situation for their own political purposes.” It described the newspaper as “sponsored by Luzhkov” [Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, was Yeltsin’s main political rival] and wrote that “the majority of observers support the government’s statements.”

But “Moskovsky Komsomolets” at that time had a reputation for independence and honesty. In his 2012 book “Moscow Explosions,” John Dunlop, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote that in 1999 Moskovsky Komsomolets had “a pool of well-informed, energetic investigative journalists” and did the hard work of investigating the bombings until he was called upon. Other leading newspapers, such as Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Obshchaya Gazeta, joined. On September 15, Moskovsky Komsomolets, in one of its reports, which the State Department ignored, wrote that “according to the preliminary conclusion [reached by independent investigators], the Chechen Mujahideen had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks in the capital... The terrorist attacks... were, with almost 100 percent with confidence, performed by professionals.”

US reluctance to raise the issue of the bombings continued even as suspicions about the FSB's role began to emerge in the State Department's own reports. In a report from the Moscow embassy, ​​an employee of the embassy's political department reported that a former Russian intelligence officer, apparently one of the embassy's main informants, said that we would never know the real story about the Ryazan incident because it would “destroy the country.” The informant said that the FSB had a “specially trained group of people” whose mission was “to carry out this type of military action in the city” and Viktor Cherkesov, the first deputy director of the FSB, interrogated Soviet dissidents, was “exactly the person who is capable of commanding and carry out similar actions.”

The political staffer reported that another source, a man close to the Russian Communist Party, whose leader Gennady Zyuganov lost the presidential election to Putin in March 2000, said he believed Ryazan raised serious questions about “the leadership of the secret services and the source of last year’s apartment bombings.” . He said the Communist Party was reluctant to raise the issue for fear of being “tarred as “unpatriotic” if it made public accusations against the security services.” A member of the political department reported that his other sources, described as “observers of the Moscow political scene,” also expressed doubts about the official version of the Ryazan incident.

The United States was also aware of other evidence that the apartment bombings were a provocation. On September 13, 1999, Gennady Seleznev, speaker of the State Duma and a person close to Putin, announced that an explosion occurred in a residential building in Volgodonsk. On the day of its announcement, the house exploded, but in Moscow, on Kashirskoye Highway. The house in Volgodonsk did NOT explode until September 16, three days later. The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, took the floor in the Duma on September 17 and said: “Do you see what is happening in the country? You say that a residential building explodes on Monday, but it explodes on Thursday. This can be regarded as a provocation.” When Zhirinovsky continued to demand an explanation, his microphone was turned off.

In the face of such evidence, the United States should at least publicly ask for an explanation for the inconsistency of Russian official explanations. But this was clearly not what American senior politicians wanted. In subsequent years, US government Russia experts, when asked about the bombings, quickly changed the subject. Academics and journalists concerned about visas and access also felt it was easier to write about Russia without discussing how Putin came to power.

The world has never really forgotten the residential bombings. On September 24, 2014, the youth wing of the opposition Yabloko party held a conference in Moscow to mark the 15th anniversary of the Ryazan incident. During the anti-Putin demonstrations of 2011-12, banners appeared that recalled “Ryazan sugar.” [Russian authorities announced that the Ryazan bomb, which was quickly removed by the FSB, was made of sugar]. The opposition-friendly press avoided the topic, but the bombings are still discussed in detail on banned opposition websites such as Kasparov.ru.

In 2015, the PBS program Frontline aired a documentary called “Putin’s Way,” in which I was interviewed at length about the bombings. This was the first time, apart from my own publications, that the mainstream media accepted the explanation that it was the FSB who carried out the attacks. Two important books also appeared that supported the idea that Putin came to power through an act of terrorism. This is Dunlop's book and “Putin's Kleptocracy” by Karen Davish. After being kicked out of Russia in December 2013, I wrote a new book, “The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia's Path to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin,” which includes a detailed discussion of the history and significance of the apartment bombings. It was perhaps a sign that the explosions, so long ignored, were finally becoming the subject of serious debate in the West.

On January 11, 2017, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) raised the topic of the bombings directly during the consent hearings of Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson. Only John McCain (R-Ariz.) has broached the topic before, and he did so in a much more cautious manner. It was perhaps a sign that the explosions, which had been ignored for so long, were finally becoming the subject of serious debate in the West.

In fact The West cannot afford to ignore such an atrocity, even 18 years after it happened. O. The CIA, in response to my request for documents, said that due to the need to protect “sources and methods,” it could not provide documents or even admit that the apartment bombings were being investigated. I believe that the available evidence establishes the FSB's guilt in the bombings beyond a reasonable doubt even without further confirmation. But documents at the CIA and State Department, including assessments of the events of 1999 and the information on which they are based, may make this case even more convincing.

If Russia's leaders committed a terrorist attack against their own people to come to power, that means they are no different from those who place explosive vehicles in marketplaces to polarize Shiites and Sunnis. I think it is obvious that such people cannot be reliable partners in the war on terror.

At the same time, careful examination of the bombings is necessary because it has the potential to blunt and perhaps end Russian propaganda attacks on the West. Even the most bewildered citizens of a Western country will sober up after learning that the authors of this propaganda are capable of crimes much more vile than anything they accuse the West of. It makes no sense to say that all talk about Putin as a defender of traditional moral values, which are popular in some conservative circles, will come to an end under these circumstances.

Perhaps most importantly, the truth about Russia's post-Soviet history could lay the groundwork for a potentially sincere relationship between the United States and Russia that would replace the self-deceptive “resets” that have proven so tempting to American presidents. Russians, meanwhile, must understand their history. Facing the reality of Putin's rise to power may show Russians, more powerfully than any Western propaganda, the terrible cost of subservience to the state and the state's disregard for human life.