Global Information1999 Russian apartment bombings information
| Russian apartment bombings | |
|---|---|
| Part of terrorism in Russia | |
 | |
| Location | Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk |
| Date | 4–16 September 1999 |
| Target | Residential apartment buildings in Russia |
Attack type | Timed bombs |
| Weapons | Hexogen |
| Deaths | 307 |
| Injured | 1,700+ |
| Perpetrators | Disputed:
|
In September 1999, a series of explosions hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War.[1][2] The handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.
The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September and Moscow on 9 and 13 September. On 13 September, State Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov made an announcement in the Duma about receiving a report that another bombing had just happened in the city of Volgodonsk. A bombing did happen in Volgodonsk—but only three days later—on 16 September. Chechen militants were blamed for the bombings, but denied responsibility, along with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.
A suspicious device resembling those used in the bombings was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on 22 September.[3][4] On 23 September, Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War.[5] Three FSB agents who had planted the devices at Ryazan were arrested by the local police.[6] The next day, FSB director Nikolay Patrushev announced that the incident in Ryazan had been an anti-terror drill and the device found there contained only sugar, and freed the FSB agents involved.[7]
The official investigation of the Buynaksk bombing was completed in 2001, while the investigations of the Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings were completed in 2002. In 2000, seven people were convicted of perpetrating the Buynaksk attack. According to the court ruling on the Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings, which was announced in 2004, the attacks were organized and led by Achemez Gochiyaev, who remains at large. All bombings, the court ruled, were ordered by Islamist warlords Ibn Al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif, who have been killed. Five other suspects have been killed and six have been convicted by Russian courts on terrorism-related charges.
Attempts at an independent investigation faced obstruction from the Russian government.[8][9] State Duma deputy Yuri Shchekochikhin filed two motions for a parliamentary investigation of the events, but the motions were rejected by the State Duma in March 2000. An independent public commission to investigate the bombings was chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev.[10] The commission was rendered ineffective because of government refusal to respond to its inquiries. Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, have since died in apparent assassinations.[11][12] The commission's lawyer and investigator Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested and served four years in prison "for revealing state secrets".[13]
Although the bombings were widely blamed on Chechen terrorists, their guilt was never conclusively proven.[14] A number of historians and investigative journalists have instead called the bombings a false flag attack perpetrated by Russian state security services to win public support for a new war in Chechnya and to boost the popularity of Vladimir Putin prior to the upcoming presidential elections.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who blamed the FSB for the bombings and was a critic of Putin, was assassinated in London in 2006. A British inquiry later determined that Litvinenko's murder was "probably" carried out with the approval of Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Patrushev.[23] Others argue that there is insufficient evidence to assign responsibility for the attacks.
- ^ Yeltsin 2000, pp. 335–338
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
De_La_Pedraja_pp147_148was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Ответ Генпрокуратуры на депутатский запрос о взрывах в Москве Archived 10 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine (in Russian), machine translation Archived 25 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ "September 1999 Russian apartment bombings timeline - Blog - The Fifth Estate". CBC. 8 January 2015. Archived from the original on 15 September 2020. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
- ^ Goldfarb & Litvinenko 2007, pp. 190, 196
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
AmyKnightwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Russian bomb scare turns out to be anti-terror drill". CNN. 24 September 1999. Archived from the original on 20 August 2019. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
- ^ Eckel, Mike (20 August 2019). "Two Decades On, Smoldering Questions About The Russian President's Vault To Power". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Archived from the original on 18 February 2022. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
- ^ Knight, Amy. "Finally, We Know About the Moscow Bombings". New York Review of Books. ISSN 0028-7504. Archived from the original on 18 February 2022. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
- ^ "Russian Federation: Amnesty International's concerns and recommendations in the case of Mikhail Trepashkin". Amnesty International. 23 March 2006. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
- ^ "Московские Новости". MN.RU. Archived from the original on 29 February 2012. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
- ^ "Радиостанция 'Эхо Москвы' / Передачи / Интервью / Четверг, 25 July 2002: Сергей Ковалев". Beta.echo.msk.ru. 25 July 2002. Archived from the original on 16 February 2012. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
- ^ (in Russian) Volgodonsk (Rostov region) apartment bombing; criminal investigation of Moscow and Buynaksk apartment bombings Archived 29 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine, an interview with FSB public relations director Alexander Zdanovich and MVD head of information Oleg Aksyonov by Vladimir Varfolomeyev, Echo of Moscow, 16 September 1999. computer translation Archived 8 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Petersson, Bo; Hutcheson, Derek (2021). "Rising from the ashes. The role of Chechnya in contemporary Russian politics". Language and Society in the Caucasus. Understanding the past, navigating the present. Lund: Universus Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-91-87439-67-4. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
Even if their guilt was never conclusively proven and the circumstances of the bomb blasts were shrouded in mystery, the attacks were widely attributed to Chechen terrorists (Dawisha 2014, 207–223). Together, these events provided Putin with the casus belli that he needed to initiate the Second Chechen War.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
amyknight2012was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Satter, David (17 August 2016). "The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power". National Review. Archived from the original on 26 April 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
- ^ "David Satter – House committee on Foreign Affairs" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
- ^ Felshtinsky & Pribylovsky 2008, pp. 105–111
- ^ Video on YouTube In Memoriam Aleksander Litvinenko, Jos de Putter, Tegenlicht documentary VPRO 2007, Moscow, 2004 Interview with Anna Politkovskaya
- ^ ’’The consolidation of Dictatorship in Russia’’ by Joel M. Ostrow, Georgiy Satarov, Irina Khakamada p.96
- ^ Salter, Lamar; Lopez, Linette; Kakoyiannis, Alana (22 March 2018). "How a series of deadly Russian apartment bombings in 1999 led to Putin's rise to power". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
- ^ Stein, Jeff (7 February 2022). "Russian 'False Flag' Ukraine Plot Wouldn't Be Its First". Military.com. Archived from the original on 18 February 2022. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
- ^ "President Putin 'probably' approved Litvinenko murder". BBC News. 21 January 2016. Archived from the original on 9 September 2021. Retrieved 23 February 2021.