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Russian apartment bombings
Location	Russia (Buynaksk-Moscow-Volgodonsk)
Date	September 4-16, 1999
Target	Low-income apartment buildings
Attack type	Time bombing
Deaths	Nearly 300
Injured	More than 1,000

The Russian apartment bombings was the largest terrorist attack in Russia's history. It was a series of five bombings that took place in Moscow and two other Russian towns during ten days of September 1999. Altogether nearly 300 civilians were killed at night. The bombings, together with the Dagestan War, led the country into the Second Chechen War. Chechen militants were blamed but no Chechen field commander accepted responsibility for the bombings and Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov denied any involvement of his government.

The bombings ceased when a similar bomb was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on September 23. Later in the evening Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the Ryzanians and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War. A few hours later, three FSB agents who had planted the bomb were caught by the local police. This incident was declared to be a training exercise by FSB director Nikolai Patrushev.

These suspicious events led to allegations that the bombings were in fact a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimize the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin and the FSB to power, as described in books by David Satter, Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky, and by Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya, who were both assassinated. Russian Parliament member Yuri Shchekochikhin filed two motions for a parliamentary investigation of the events, but the motions were rejected by the Russian Duma in March 2000. An independent public commission to investigate the bombings chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev was hampered by government refusal to respond to its inquiries , and its chairmen admitted that he has no evidence to support any version of the events. Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, both Duma members, have since died in apparent assassinations. The Commission's lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested.

An official FSB investigation of the bombings was completed three years later, in 2002. Seven suspects have been killed and six have been convicted on terrorism-related charges. According to the investigation, all the bombings were organized and led by Achemez Gochiyaev (who as of 2007 remained at large) and were ordered by the Arab-born Chechen commander Ibn al-Khattab (who was killed by the FSB in 2002). Both denied any involvement in the bombings. The bomb in the city of Ryzan was declared to be a fake.

The bombings

Moscow mall

The first bombing, which did not target an apartment block, occurred in Moscow on August 31, 1999. A bomb exploded in a mall, killing one person and leaving 40 others wounded.

Buynaksk

At 9:40 p.m. on September 4, 1999, a car bomb detonated outside a five story apartment building housing Russian soldiers and their families in the city of Buynaksk in Dagestan. Sixty-four people were killed and 133 were wounded . On the same day, a car containing 2,706 kilograms of explosives was found in a parking lot surrounded by an army hospital and residential buildings. It was discovered by local residents, not by the security services or police .

Moscow, Pechatniki

On September 9, shortly after midnight, 300 to 400 kg of explosives detonated on the ground floor of an apartment building in south-east Moscow. The nine-story building was destroyed, killing 94 people inside and wounding 249 others. A total of 108 apartments were destroyed during the bombing. An anonymous caller to a Russian news agency said the blast was a response to recent the Russian bombing of Chechen and Dagestan villages . An FSB spokesman identified the explosive as hexogen (RDX). Yeltsin ordered to search 30,000 residential buildings in Moscow for explosives .

Moscow, Kashirskoye highway

September 13, 1999, was supposed to be a day of mourning for the victims of the previous bomb attacks, but on that day a large bomb exploded at 5:00 a.m. in a basement of an apartment block on Kashirskoye Highway in southern Moscow. The eight-story building was flattened, littering the street with debris and throwing some concrete pieces hundreds of yards away. In all, 118 people died and 200 were wounded.. The basement of the destroyed building was checked by police three hours prior to the blast .

Moscow, attempted bombings

On September 13, a bomb was defused in a building in Kapotnya area. A warehouse containing several tons of explosives and six timing devices have been found at Borisov Ponds . How these sites have been discovered was never officially announced.

A Karachai businessman Achemez Gochiyaev claimed that it was him who called to police and warned about these bombing locations, which helped to prevent a large number of further casualties. Gochiyaev said that he was framed by his old acquaintance, an FSB officer who asked him to rent basements "as storage facilities" on four locations where bombs have been later found. When two first bombs run off, Gochiyaev realized that he was framed and called to police to warn about the bombing .

Volgodonsk

A truck bomb exploded on September 16, 1999, outside a nine-story apartment complex in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk, killing 17 people and injuring 69 . The bombing took place at 5:00 a.m., exactly as the previous bombing in Moscow. Thirty seven surrounding buildings were also damaged.

Incident in Russian Parliament

On September 13, just hours after the second explosion in Moscow, Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov of the Communist Party made a surprising announcement: "I have just received a report. According to information from Rostov-on-Don, an apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk was blown up last night" However the bombing in Volgodonsk took place only three days later, on September 16. When Volgodonsk bombing happened, Vladimir Zhirinovsky demanded an explanation in Duma, but Seleznev turned his microphone off

Alexander Litvinenko described this as a "the usual Kontora mess up". "Moscow-2 was on the 13th and Volgodonsk on 16th, but they got it to the speaker the other way around", he said. Investigator Mikhail Trepashkin confirmed that the man who gave Seleznev the note was indeed an FSB officer

The Russian Public Prosecutor's Office had replied to Yushenkov's inquiry by stating that Seleznyov was referring to an unrelated hand grenade-based explosion, which indeed happened in Volgodonsk three days earlier.

Ryazan incident

On the evening of September 22, 1999, an alert resident of an apartment building in the town of Ryazan noticed two suspicious men who carried sacks into the basement from a car with a Moscow license plate. When police arrived, the car with people was gone.

The policemen found three hundred-pound sacks of white powder in the basement. A detonator and a timing device were attached and turned on. The timer was set for 5:30 in the morning . Yuri Tkachenko, the head of the local bomb squad, disconnected a detonator and a bomb timing device and tested three sacks of white substance with a gas analyzer MO-2. The substance was identified as hexogen (RDX), military explosive used in all previous bombings.

Police and rescue vehicles converged from different parts of the city, and 30,000 residents have been evacuated from the area. 1,200 local police officers with automatic weapons set up roadblocks on highways around the city and started patrolling railroad stations and airports to hunt the terrorists down. In the morning, "Ryazan resembled a city under siege". Composite sketches of two man and a women terrorist suspects were sent to two thousand policeman and shown on TV.

At 8 a.m. September 23 Russian television networks reported the attempt to blow up a building in Ryazan using hexogen. The minister of internal affairs Vladimir Rushailo announced that police prevented a terrorist act. Later in the evening Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the Ryzanians and called for the air bombing of Grozny..

In the evening of September 23, the perpetrators were caught. A telephone service employee tapped into a long distance phone conversations managed to detect a talk in which an out-of-town person suggested to "split up" and "make your own way out". That person's number was found to belong to an FSB office in Moscow. When arrested, the detainees produced FSB identification cards. They soon have been released on orders from Moscow. The names and further fate of three FSB agents who conducted this operation remained unknown as of 2007.

Next morning FSB director Nikolai Patrushev declared that the incident was a training exercise.

On March 23 2000, a few days before the Putin's election, Igor Malashkevich, the president of NTV Russia was going to broadcast "The Sugar of Ryazan" movie about the events. He was warned that NTV "should consider themselves finished" if they will go ahead with the broadcast. The warning allegedly came from Vladimir Putin and was brought by Valentin Yumashev, son-in-law of Boris Yeltsin . The talk with the residents of the Ryazan apartment building along with FSB members Alexander Zdanovich and General Sergeyev was filmed earlier, on March 20, 2000. The talk was aired on March 24. The FSB members refused to provide the name of the head of the training exercise, if there was any. On March 26 Boris Nemtsov voiced his concern over the possible shut-down of NTV for airing the talk.

Explosives controversy

Yuri Tkachenko, the police explosives expert who defused the Ryazan bomb insisted that it was real, contrary to the statements of FSB officials. Tkachenko said that the explosives, including a timer, a power source, and a detonator were genuine military equipment and obviously prepared by a professional. He also said that the gas analyzer that tested the vapors coming from the sacks unmistakably indicated the presence of hexogen. Tkachenko said that it was out of the question that the analyzer could have malfunctioned, as the gas analyzer was of world class quality, costing $20,000 and was maintained by a specialist who worked according to a strict schedule, checking the analyzer after each use and making frequent prophylactic checks. Tkachenko pointed out that meticulous care in the handling of the gas analyzer was a necessity because the lives of the bomb squad experts depended on the reliability of their equipment. The police officers who answered the original call and discovered the bomb also insisted that the incident was not an exercise and that it was obvious from its appearance that the substance in the bomb was not sugar.

In 2002 deputy of Russian Parliament Aleksandr Kulikov asked the General Prosecutor's Office about its investigation of apartment bombings in Moscow, Volgodonsk and discovering of explosive devices in Ryazan. Russian Deputy Prosecutor Vasiliy Kolmogorov replied that a comprehensive testing of the samples showed no traces of any explosives, and that sacks in fact contained sugar.

Official FSB investigation

Just a few days after the bombings, on September 23, the head of Moscow FSB Alexander Tsarenko announced that all Chechen perpetrators had been already apprehended. However, the people mentioned by Tsarenko turned out to be not Chechens but from Ingushetia and were later released as not having any relation to the explosions .

The official investigation was concluded only in 2002. According to the Russian state Prosecutor office, all apartment bombings were executed under command of ethnic Karachay Achemez Gochiyayev. The operations were planned by Amir Khattab and Abu Umar, Arab militants fighting in Chechnya on the side of Chechen insurgents. Both of them were later killed during the Second Chechen War. The planning was carried out in Khattab's guerilla camps in Chechnya, "Caucasus" in Shatoy and "Taliban" in Avtury, according to the prosecution

The explosives were prepared at a fertilizer factory in Urus-Martan, Chechnya, by mixing hexogen, TNT, aluminium powder and nitre with sugar. From there they were sent to a food storage facility in Kislovodsk, which was managed by an uncle of one of the terrorists, Yusuf Krymshakhalov. Another conspirator, Ruslan Magayayev, had leased a KamAZ truck in which the sacks were stored for two months. After everything was planned, the participants were organized into several groups which then transported the explosives to different cities. Most of the people participating were not ethnic Chechens.

Batchayev and Krymshakhalov admitted transporting a truckload of explosives to Moscow but said "they have never been in touch with Chechen warlords and did not knew Gochiyaev". They said that someone "who posed as a jihad leader had duped them into the operation" by hiring to transport his expolosives, and they later realized this man was working for the FSB They claimed that bombings were directed by German Ugryumov who supervised the FSB Alpha and Vympel special forces units at that time.

Suspects and convicts

According to official investigation, the following people played key role in the bombings:

• Achemez Gochiyayev (has not been arrested; he is still at large)
• Yusuf Krymshamkhalov (arrested in Georgia, extradited to Russia and sentenced to life imprisonment in January 2004, after a two-month secret trial held without a jury)
• Adam Dekkushev (arrested in Georgia, threw a grenade at police during the arrest, extradited to Russia and sentenced to life imprisonment in January 2004, after a two-month secret trial held without a jury)

On January 18 2003, Yuri Felshtinsky provided Novaya Gazeta with a video recording and its transcript. The video dated August 20 2002, contained an interview with main suspect of the case Achemez Gochiyayev. According to Gochiyayev, he was an unknowing participant in a plot organized by an undercover FSB agent, his former acquaintance Ramazan Dyshekov.

Attempts at independent investigation

The Russian Duma rejected two motions for parliamentary investigation of the Ryazan incident. The Duma, on a pro-Kremlin party block vote, voted to seal all materials related to the Ryazan incident for the next 75 years and forbade an investigation into what happened.

An independent public commission to investigate the bombings chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev, was rendered ineffective because of government refusal to respond to its inquiries. In 2002 and 2003 prominent members of the Kovalevs commission underlined they had no information about the initiator of the bombings, but stressed, that the theory of the FSB involvement, published in the book of Litvinenko and Felshtinsky seems to be even more doubtful than the results of the official investigation Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, both Duma members, have since died in apparent assassinations in April 2003 and July 2003 respectively.. Another member of the commission, Otto Lacis, was assaulted in November 2003 and two years later on November 3 2005 died in hospital after a car accident.

The commission of Sergei Kovalev asked lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin to investigate the case. Trepashkin found that the basement of one of the bombed buildings was rented by FSB officer Vladimir Romanovich and that the latter was witnessed by several people. However Trepashkin was unable to bring the evidence to the court because he was arrested in October 2003, allegedly for "disclosing state secrets", just a few days shortly before he was to make his findings public. . He was convicted by a military closed court to four years.. Amnesty International issued a concern that "there are serious grounds to believe that Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested and convicted under falsified criminal charges which may be politically-motivated, in order to prevent him continuing his investigative and legal work related to the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities". Romanovich subsequently died in a hit and run accident in Cyprus.

According to Trepashkin, his supervisers and people from the FSB, promised not to arrest him if he leaves the Kovalev commission and start working together with the FSB "against Alexander Litvinenko"

Theory of Russian government involvement

The claim

The bombings happened over a span of two weeks in 1999 and stopped when three FSB agents were caught by the local police while planting a similar bomb in an apartment block in the city of Ryazan. Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Rushailo congratulated citizens with preventing the terrorist act soon after the incident, but FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev declared that the incident was a training exercise, when he had learned that the FSB agents were caught. The next day, Boris Yeltsin received a demand from 24 Russian governors to transfer all state powers to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to Sergei Yushenkov. Second Chechen War began on September 23. This war made Prime Minister Vladimir Putin very popular, although he was previously unknown to the public, and helped him to win a landslide victory in the presidential elections on March 26 2000.

These events were a successful coup d'état organized by the FSB to bring future Russian president Vladimir Putin to power according to a theory that was put forward by writer David Satter, political scientist Vladimir Pribylovsky, historian Yuriy Felshtinsky, former FSB officer and writer Alexander Litvinenko, Russian Duma lawmaker Sergei Yushenkov, film maker Andrei Nekrasov, investigator Mikhail Trepashkin, and others. Some of them described the bombings as typical "active measures" practicised by the KGB in the past. David Satter stated during his testimony in the United States House of Representatives that

"With Yeltsin and his family facing possible criminal prosecution, however, a plan was put into motion to put in place a successor who would guarantee that Yeltsin and his family would be safe from prosecution and the criminal division of property in the country would not be subject to reexamination. For “Operation Successor” to succeed, however, it was necessary to have a massive provocation. In my view, this provocation was the bombing in September, 1999 of the apartment building bombings in Moscow, Buinaksk, and Volgodonsk. In the aftermath of these attacks, which claimed 300 lives, a new war was launched against Chechnya. Putin, the newly appointed prime minister who was put in charge of that war, achieved overnight popularity. Yeltsin resigned early. Putin was elected president and his first act was to guarantee Yeltsin immunity from prosecution."

Terrorist attack in Buynaksk

According to this version, the September 4 terrorist attack in Buynaksk was probably conducted by a sabotage unit of twelve Russian GRU ("Гла́вное Разве́дывательное Управле́ние" (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije - Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation)) officers who acted on the orders of Colonel-General Valentin Korabelnikov. This is partly based on the testimony of GRU officer Aleksey Galkin (see section below).

Use of confessions allegedly obtained under torture to boost theory

In December 1999 writer Robert Young Pelton interviewed Aleksey Galkin in the captivity of Chechen rebels. Galkin confessed that the bombing in Buynaksk was organized by a GRU team under the general command of the head of the 14th section of the Central Intelligence Office, Lt. Gen. Kostechko, and GRU director Valentin Korabelnikov. Pelton describes the interview with Galkin in his book Three Worlds Gone Mad..

Galkin escaped from captivity at the beginning of 2000. After his escape he stated that Chechen rebels had tortured him to extract the confession. A medical examination found 4 broken ribs (three of them partially healed, indicating older traumas). His jaw was broken in three places. Galkin had suffered multiple concussions too. According to independent psychologist Michael Istomin, interviewed by "Novaya Gazeta", the videotaped confession of Galkin is consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder induced by torture.

According to Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribylovsky, Galkin did not deny his statement about GRU involvement in interviews given after his escape.

Terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk

According to this version, all other attacks were organized by FSB forces based on the following chain of command: "Putin (former director of the secret service, future president) - Patrushev (Putin's successor as director of the secret service) - secret service General German Ugryumov (director of the counter-terrorism department)" - FSB officers Vladimir Romanovich, Ramazan Dyshenkov and others who directly carried out the bombings .

Several Chechens were recruited by FSB agents to deliver explosives disguised as bags of sugar to Volgodonsk ans Moscow: Adam Dekkushev, Tysup Krymshamkhalov, and Timur Batchaev. The Chechens believed that apartment buildings were merely temporarily storage places, and that explosives will be used against federal military targets . Ethnic Karachai Achemez Gochiyaev rented the apartment basements as storage spaces on request from FSB agent Ramazan Dyshenkov.

Books and documentaries about the FSB involvement

Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko and historian Yuri Felshtinsky, published book Blowing up Russia: Terror from within about the Russian apartment bombings and other terrorism acts that have been allegedly committed by Russian State Security Services to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power. On 29 December 2003 Russian authorities confiscated over 5000 copies of the book en route to Moscow from the publisher in Latvia.

A documentary "Assassination of Russia" was made by two French producers who previously worked with Russian NTV channel on "Sugar of Ryazan" program . The movie was shown in the main channels of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. FSB mounted a fierce campaign to block the film. Russian Duma lawmaker Yuli Rybakov brought a hundred of copies to St. Petersburg, but the copies were confiscated at Customs, in violation of his parliamentary immunity. No TV station in Russia was able to show the film However tens of thousands of pirate copies were sold in Russia in 2002.

On April 23, 2002, Sergei Yushenkov brought to Washington DC a box with copies of "Assassination of Russia". He tried to convince US administration that bombings were committed by the FSB. He did not receive any formal recognition. A staffer in Senate Foreign Relations Commitee explained :

"We just cannot go out and say that the president of Russia is a mass murderer. But it is important that we know it."

In a book, Gang from Lubyanka, Litvinenko and microbiologist and activist Alexander Goldfarb described transformation of the FSB into a criminal and terrorist organization.

A documentary "Nedoverie" ("Disbelief") about the bombing controversy by Russian director Andrei Nekrasov was premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. The film chronicles the story of Tatyana and Alyona Morozova, the two Russian-American sisters, who had lost their mother in the attack, and decided to find out who did it.

Alexander Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko have published a book Death of a Dissident. They asserted that Litvineko murder by Russian agents was "the most compelling proof" of the FSB involvement theory. According to the book, the murder of Litvineko "gave credence to all his previous theories, delivering justice for the tenants of the bombed apartment blocks, the Moscow theater-goers, Yushenkov, Shchekochikhin, and Anna Politkovskaya, and the half-exterminated nation of Chechnya, exposing their killers for the whole world to see."

The BBC Channel 4's Dispatches programme "Dying for the President" screened on March 9, 2000 and a subsequent article in The Observer also alleged that their journalists put Russian "secret police in frame for Moscow atrocities".

Criticism and support of the FSB involvement theory

Criticism

According to Russia's official investigation Chechen separatists were responsible for the bombings. The FSB said the Ryazan bomb was a dummy, planted by security officers as part of a secret civil defense drill, the sacks being filled with sugar. The purpose of the terrorist acts was to distract attention of Russian authorities from the battles in Dagestan between the federal forces and rebels, including Chechens and headed by Shamil Basayev and Arabian Khattab. Basayev and Khattab invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan on August 7 1999 in support of the Islamic Shura of Dagestan separatist rebels. The bombings and the invasion prompted Russian authorities to break the Khasav-Yurt Accord, even though the invasion was opposed by Aslan Maskhadov. An FSB spokesman said that "Litvinenko's evidence cannot be taken seriously by those who are investigating the bombings"..

Head of Russia's National Civic Council of International Affairs Sergei Markov criticized the film "Assassination of Russia" by Andrei Nekrasov which supported the FSB involvement theory and was made with the help of Boris Berezovsky. Markov said that the film was "a well-made professional example of the propagandist and psychological war that Boris Berezovsky is notoriously good at." Markov found parallels with a conspiracy theory that the United States and/or Israel organized the 9/11 attacks in order to justify military actions. Paul Starobin also said that "Assassination of Russia" offered "no hard proof".

In his book Inside Putin's Russia Andrew Jack mentions several aspects in favour and against the conspiracy theory. The counter-arguments included the following.

• The Ryazan incident might have been an attempt by FSB to stage a bombing in order to boost FSB's budget, reputation and power grip.
• High loss of life in three first months of Second Chechen War following the bombings could damage chances of Putin in subsequent presidential elections rather than to increase his popularity.
• Jack notes little credibility of reports in Russian media.
• Jack personally met Berezovsky who said he had no information on the alleged FSB plot at the time of bombings and soon after the events.

Support

U.S. Senator and presidential candidate John McCain said that there remained "credible allegations that Russia's FSB had a hand in carrying out these attacks".

Some publications tell that "being prone to conspiracy theories, as Russians certainly are, doesn’t mean that someone is not conspiring against them" Paul Saunders commented that Putin's willingness to shut down the Novaya Gazeta could be understood because "most dismiss the involvement of the Russian government in the apartment bombings as an unsupported conspiracy theory though it has received widespread attention". Vanora Bennett said that although "it sounds far-fetched at first",

"remember that the FSB is simply the renamed KGB, whose raison d'etre for decades was essentially institutional terror in the service of the government. Putin is himself an ex-KGB man, and he has twice blocked, through the Duma, any independent investigation into the bombings. No evidence of Chechen involvement has ever been forthcoming, and the Chechen groups have claimed that they were not responsible - although they admit to other acts of violence. The Ryazan "training exercise" excuse is preposterous. It does seem to suggest that the Russian secret services were caught red-handed".

Neutral

A summary of a conference at Princeton University concluded that although "the Russian leadership has exploited the tragedy of the bombings for political purposes", there is no convincing proof of any version, including the "Chechen guilt" or "the "conspiracy theory" that ties responsibility to the Russian FSB (the successor to the KGB)"

Former KGB colonel Konstantin Preobrazhensky said that "Litvinenko's accusations are not unfounded. Chechen rebels were incapable of organising a series of bombings without help from high-ranking Moscow officials"

Russian military analyst Pavel Fengelhauer noted "The FSB accused Khattab and Gochiyaev, but oddly they did not point the finger at Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov's regime, which is what the war was launched against" .

Chronology of events

• September 4 1999: Bombing in Buynaksk, 64 people killed, 133 are injured.
• September 9 1999: Bombing in Moscow, Pechatniki, 94 people are killed, 249 are injured.
• September 13 1999: Bombing in Moscow, Kashirskoye highway, 118 are killed.
• September 16 1999: Bombing in Volgodonsk, 18 are killed, 288 injured.
• September 22 1999: FSB agents caught planting the bomb in Ryazan. The sequence of bombings stops.
• September 24 1999: Second Chechen War begins

See also

• Dagestan War
• Aleksander Litvinenko
• Maxim Lazovsky

External links

• Приговор Крымшамхалову и Деккушеву Template:Ru icon translation
• Full Text of Robert Young Pelton's 1999 interview with GRU officer Alexei Viktorovich Galkin in Grozny
• "Poisoned spy defiant in final interview before his death". Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor, The Times, November 23, 2006.
• "The Shadow of Ryazan: Who Was Behind the Strange Russian Apartment Bombings in September 1999?", David Satter, The Hudson Institute, April 19, 2002.
• "Fear of Doing the Boss a Disservice", Moscow Times, April 11, 2002, p. 8.
• "'Gospodin Geksogen' ('Mr. Hexogen')", Dr. Alexandr Nemets and Dr. Thomas Torda, NewsMax.com, July 19, 2002.
• "'Mr. Hexogen' (Continued)", Dr. Alexandr Nemets and Dr. Thomas Torda, NewsMax.com, July 23, 2002.
• JF: U.S. Grants Alyona Morozova Political Asylum.
• The blasts which shook Russia, August 10, 2000, BBC
• Russia apartment bombs: Two jailed, January 12, 2004, CNN.
• "Assassination of Russia" — "Покушение на Россию" Template:Ru icon A 52-minute documentary (in Russian), using footage originally shot by NTV is available for downloading from this site. The film examines Russian apartment bombings and focuses on the foiled bombing in Ryazan. It can be viewed in English online via an Indymedia upload or ordered at the Terror 99 web site. The script in English is available on Yuri Felshtinsky's website.
• Timeline: Terrorism in Russia, February 6, 2004, CNN
• The Terror of 9/99: Fact Sheet
• The request of the Chairman of the public inquiry committee Kovalyov to the Director of FSB Template:Ru icon, translation, April 8, 2002.
• The answer of the Secretary of the Director of FSB to the Kovalyov's request Template:Ru icon, translation, May 8, 2002.
• The answer of the General Prosecutor office to the request of the Duma member Kulikov Template:Ru icon, translation, Spring, 2002.
• Journalist investigation by Novaya Gazeta Template:Ru icon; translation.
• 'Disbelief' by Andrei Nekrasov — documentary about Moscow Apartment Bombings; Google Video Template:En icon, Template:Ru icon.
• The Operation "Successor" by Vladimir Pribylovsky and Yuriy Felshtinsky (in Russian).

References

1. ^ Vladimir Pribylovsky and Yuri Felshtinsky) The Age of Assassins. The Rise and Rise of Vladimir Putin, Gibson Square Books, London, 2008, ISBN 190-614207-6; pages 105-111. Cite error: The named reference "Assassins" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
2. ^ Alex Goldfarb, with Marina Litvinenko Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, The Free Press, 2007, ISBN 1-416-55165-4
3. David Satter - House committee on Foreign Affairs
4. ^ David Satter. Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State. Yale University Press. 2003. ISBN 0-300-09892-8. Cite error: The named reference "Satter" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
5. Tegenlicht documentary VPRO 2007, In Memoriam Aleksander Litvinenko, Jos de Putter, Moscow 2004 Interview with Anna Politkovskiya.
6. Russian Federation: Amnesty International's concerns and recommendations in the case of Mikhail Trepashkin - Amnesty International
7. ^ All versions cast doubts Moscow News.
8. MN.RU: Московские Новости
9. Радиостанция "Эхо Москвы" / Передачи / Интервью / Четверг, 25.07.2002: Сергей Ковалев
10. Взрыв жилого дома в Москве положил конец спокойствию в столице
11. "Darkness at Dawn", page 65
12. Death of a Dissident, page 264
13. «Я Хочу Рассказать О Взрывах Жилых Домов»
14. Achemez Gochiyaev: I’ve been framed up by a FSB agent by Prima News, July 25, 2002
15. "Death of a Dissident", page 265
16. HAUNTING YUSHENKOV LECTURE BROADCAST
17. CDI
18. NewsRu.com: "Gennadiy Seleznyov was warned of the Volgodonsk explosion three days in advance"Template:Ru icon
19. "Death of a Dissident", page 265
20. "Death of a Dissident", page 266
21. Reply of the Public Prosecutor Office of the Russian Federation to a deputy inquiryTemplate:Ru icon.
22. "Death of a dissident", page 196
23. Williams, Bryan Glyn (2001). The Russo-Chechen War: A Threat to Stability in the Middle East and Eurasia?. Middle East Policy 8.1.
24. "Death of a dissident", page 198
25. ФСБ взрывает Россию. ФСБ против народаTemplate:Ru icon, Alexander Litvinenko, Yuri Felshtinsky, Novaya Gazeta, August 27, 2001. Computer translation.
26. " The Shadow of Ryazan: Is Putin's government legitimate?", David Satter, National Review, April 30, 2002.
27. Answer of the General Prosecutor's office on the deputy request (on explosions in Moscow)
28. The Age of Assassins, page 109
29. Only one explosions suspect still free, Kommersant, December 10, 2002.
30. ^ Results of the investigation of explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk and an incident in Ryazan.Template:Ru icon The answer of the Russian state Prosecutor office to the inquiry of Gosduma member A. Kulikov, circa March 2002. computer translation
31. Hexogen trail, Novaya Gazeta
32. Gochiyayev's wanted page on FSB web site.
33. ^ Two life sentences for 246 murders, Kommersant, January 13, 2004.
34. computer translation
35. computer translation
36. Duma Rejects Move to Probe Ryazan Apartment Bomb, by Yevgenia Borisova. 21 March 2000.
37. Duma Vote Kills Query On Ryazan, The Moscow Times, 4 April 2000.
38. Putin critic loses post, platform for inquiry, Douglas Birch. The Baltimore Sun, 11 December 2003.
39. Russian court rejects action over controversial "anti-terrorist exercise". BBC Monitoring. 3 April 2003. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow.
40. Радиостанция "Эхо Москвы" / Передачи / Интервью / Четверг, 25.07.2002: Сергей Ковалев
41. MN.RU: Московские Новости
42. Chronology of events. State Duma Deputy Yushenkov shot dead. Centre for Russian Studies. Norway. 17 April 2003.
43. Worries Linger as Schekochikhin's Laid to Rest. By Oksana Yablokova. The Moscow Times. 7 July 2003.
44. Otto Lacis brutally beaten in Moscow. NewsRU. 11 November 2003. computer translation
45. A prominent Russian journalist Otto Lacis diedTemplate:Ru icon
46. For Trepashkin, Bomb Trail Leads to Jail
47. Los Angeles Times - Russian Ex-Agent's Sentencing Called Political Investigator was about to release a report on 1999 bombings when he was arrested
48. Russian Federation: Amnesty International calls for Mikhail Trepashkin to be released pending a full review of his case
49. Interview with Mikhail Trepashkin, RFE/RL, December 1, 2007. Russian: "давай вместе работать против Литвиненко и уйди из комиссии по взрывам домов и тогда тебя никто не тронет. Я говорил со своими шефами, совершенно точно, тебя не тронут. Кончай с Ковалевым Сергеем Адамовичем контактировать в Госдуме и так далее."
50. Sergei Yushenkov: That was a coup in 1999.
51. Satter House Testimony, 2007.
52. "Our group prepared diversions in Chechnya and Dagestan", Testimony of Senior Lieutenant Alexei Galkin, November 1999.
53. ^ >Template:Ru iconThe first voluntary interview of Alexey Galkin, comments by journalist Roman Shleinov and conclusion of psychologist Michail Istomin Novaya Gazeta N 89, December 2, 2002.
54. Template:Ru iconOur group prepared diversions in Chechnya and Dagestan. Testimony of senior lieutenant Alexey Galkin, Novaya Gazeta N 89, December 2, 2002
55. Robert Young Pelton Three Worlds Gone Mad: Dangerous Journeys through the War Zones of Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific, The Lyons Press; (2003), ISBN 1-592-28100-1
56. Russian editor questioned over seizure of controversial book
57. Death of a Dissident, pages 249-250.
58. Death of a Dissident, pages 249-250.
59. Death of a Dissident, pages 259.
60. Disbelief. The record in IMDb.
61. Google Video
62. Screening Horror; A new film seeks the truth behind the 1999 bombings., The Moscow Times]
63. Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko. Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, The Free Press (2007) ISBN 1-416-55165-4
64. Britain's Observer newspaper suggests Russian secret service involvement in Moscow bombings, By Julie Hyland 15 March 2000
65. Johann Hari. "Conspiracy theories: a guide". New Statesman. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
66. ^ Olga Nedbayeva. "Conspiracy theories on Russia's 1999 bombings gain ground". Agence France-Presse.
67. "Assassination of Russia"- Film Screening and Panel Discussion, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, April 24 2002.
68. Money to Burn...Putin, by Paul Starobin, August 26, 2002.
69. Andrew Jack. Inside Putin's Russia: Can There Be Reform Without Democracy?. Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
70. McCain Decries, November 4, 2003, Friends of John McCain.
71. Articles on Russia & Chechnya
72. Johann Hari. "Conspiracy theories: a guide". New Statesman. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
73. Steven Lee Myers. "The New York Times". Retrieved 2008-01-28.
74. Paul J. Saunders (2000-05-09). "Russian Villain or Hero?". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
75. "From Russia with secrets". Times Online. May 13, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
76. "The Crisis In Chechnya: Causes, Prospects, Solutions" (PDF). Princeton University. Retrieved 2008-01-28.

• 1999 in Russia
• Moscow events
• Second Chechen War
• Terrorism in Russia
• Terrorist incidents in 1999
• Massacres in Russia
• Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation