The 1999 Russian Apartment Bombs: How to Steal a Country
On November 6th 2024 Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States for the second time, only the second President in history to win non-consecutive terms. Many of the impartial observers of the election result view this as a win not for American democracy, not even for the Republic Party, but for one man and a clandestine operation, pulling strings from afar.
Vladimir Putin, the longstanding ruler of Russia, is believed by some to have thoroughly compromised Trump, guiding him in his policy decisions and in receipt of America’s most closely guarded secrets. The truth of this may never come to light, but Russian use of “kompromat” or compromising materials to blackmail officials both foreign and domestic is well established, and effective.
Putin’s background is also well established. A Colonel in the KGB, for whom he worked for 16 years, his move into politics came with the fall of the Soviet Union. His job title may have changed, but it seems his approach remained fixed, and for those who doubt this, his rise to power bears close scrutiny.
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For the United States of America, if the rumors are to be believed, was not the first time Putin stole a country. The start of his authoritarian regime and the personality cult which he cultivated around him came with his installation in the role of acting Russian President in 1999 following the resignation of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin.
Putin faced an election only months after coming to power, but the fact of his installation as President without a public election made him the strong favorite. His plan, if it is to be believed, started in the summer of 1999 and was as daring as it was bloodthirsty.
And 300 Russians died for it.
Agent Provocateur
It is September 1999. Boris Yeltsin is President and Putin is Prime Minister, the official head of the Russian government and second in rank overall in the Russian hierarchy. government and second in rank overall in the Russian hierarchy.
That month a series of explosions destroyed four apartment blocks in Buynaksk, Volgodonsk and Moscow. Three further bombs were uncovered and defused, and all shared the same design, using potent explosives and a timer.
The FSB, the successor to the KGB, were quick to identify Chechen extremists as those responsible for the attacks. Putin himself called US President Bill Clinton to confirm this conclusion, and after a two years investigation this was indeed confirmed officially.
The Russian State Prosecutor office named three men as the masterminds behind the attacks: a North-Caucasian Turkic Karachay named Achemez Gochiyayev and two Arab militants fighting for Chechnya, Ibn al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif. Gochiyayev disappeared in 2002 and al-Khattab was poisoned by the FSB at around the same time; al-Saif died fighting in Dagestan in 2005.
Putin’s hardline position against Chechnya and his quick and decisive response is largely credited with propelling him into the Presidency. Yeltsin’s reputation was badly damaged by the bombings and this, along with the threat of criminal prosecution, was a significant contributory factor behind his resignation on the last day of 1999.
So, it could be said that Putin was lucky to have such a terrorist atrocity occur at exactly the right time to elevate him to the top job. But it has also been persuasively argued that luck had nothing to do with it.
The bombings had all the hallmarks of an ex-KGB operation, looking for all the world like another in a long list of what the Russian secret service called “active measures” and effectively being a successful false-flag operation. It even allegedly has a name: “Operation Successor.”
According to this theory, the bombs were planted by the GRU, the Russian foreign military intelligence agency, in Buynaksk, and the FSB in Moscow and Volgodonsk, along with successfully defused bombs in another city, Ryazan. Individuals were then recruited by the FSB to claim Chechen responsibility for the attacks, triggering another war with Chechnya and cementing Putin as successor leader to Yeltsin.
One of the most prominent (and highest ranking) individuals who supported this story was Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-FSB officer in London. Litvinenko’s subsequent murder by radioactive polonium-210 poisoning by Russian agents is a fully established fact, and perhaps the most overt proof that what he was claiming was right.
Further evidence comes from the official response to the bombings. The failed bombs in Ryazan, which could have proved FSB involvement, were spirited away and all materials related to the attempted Ryazan attack were sealed by the Russian Parliament for a period of at least 75 years.
Many others who pursued an independent investigation also died unexpectedly. Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, two members of Russian Parliament tasked with conducting an independent investigation, were assassinated within months of each other in 2003, and a third, Otto Lacis, died in 2005 in a car accident.
A popular Russian talk show which discussed the bombings in 2000 received an official warning that they had “crossed a line” with regards to their coverage and that the Kremlin now considered them “outlaws” for failing to adhere to the official conclusions. Finally, two Russian investigative journalists looking into the bombings, Artyom Borovik and Anna Politkovskaya, were killed in apparent accidents in 2000 and 2006.
The official investigation was shuttered in 2008, but, intriguingly, at no point were official attempts made to trace the Chechen involvement in the atrocity. It was for all the world as if the authorities knew that there would be nothing to be found.
Perhaps the most damning evidence however comes from what happened at the time of the bombings. When the unexploded bombs in Ryazan were found, several people were identified as bringing the explosives into the building and were tracked down and detained by the authorities. However they were released when they showed the police their FSB identification.
The official story as to Ryazan changed shortly thereafter. Previously it had been characterized as a genuine attack, but after the FSB involvement became known it became “security training” which apparently involved real explosives and an apartment building full of people. Sounds risky for training.
But the single biggest piece of evidence came on 13th September 1999. Only hours after the second explosion in Moscow, the Speaker of the Russian Parliament Gennadiy Seleznyov made an 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.”
He had apparently received this information from a clairvoyant, for the Volgodonsk explosion did not happen until the 16th. When Seleznyov was questioned about this in the Russian Parliament by politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the 17th, Seleznyov’s microphone was turned off, preventing a reply.
Whoever was responsible for the Russian apartment bombings, it is in no doubt that they guaranteed Putin’s ascension to Russian Premier. And neither is it in any doubt that, if the FSB and the GRU were indeed involved, that they would only act with Putin’s authorization; they would not dare act alone.
And the rest is history. At this point only Joseph Stalin has ruled modern Russia for longer than Putin, and it seems that his authoritarian stranglehold on the country is as strong as ever. And with Donald Trump in the White House it is just possible that he now rules not one country, but two.
Header Image: The bombing of this Russian apartment building in Volgodonsk was announced in the Russian Parliament on 13th September 1999, three days before it actually happened. Source: Youtub/Ownwork / Public Domain.
