Random Things That The Russian Apartment Bombings Were A Putin-Organized Terror Tactic Intended To Start A War (9 items)

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  (#4) Many Believed The Bombings Were A Government Mechanism For Inducing War With Chechnya

  In addition to the highly suspicious nature of the attempted bombing of Ryazan, other suspicions led many Russians to believe that the bombings were actually the work of the government. Even before the bombings began, rumors had swirled through the media about a government bombing attack that would be used as a provocation to start a second war with Chechnya. With Boris Yeltsin's popularity rating at 2%, and support nonexistent for his hand-picked successor, Vladimir Putin, Russia's political leaders feared that the upcoming 2000 election required a drastic turnabout in public sentiment. Many believed that the 1999 bombings were deliberately planned to begin the process of manipulating public opinion. 
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  (#7) The Bombings Were Used To Justify The Second Chechen War

  Only days after the apartment bombings in Russia, the Russian air force began a massive bombing campaign against Chechnya. Vladimir Putin, at the time Russia's prime minister, used this occasion to attempt to build his image as a hard-line opponent of terrorism and a decisive leader. On September 24, he publicly stated about Chechens and others allegedly behind the apartment bombings: ''We will pursue the terrorists everywhere. If they are in an airport, then in an airport, and, forgive me, if we catch them in the toilet, then we’ll rub them out in the toilet."

  By New Year's Eve 1999, Russian troops driving deep into Chechnya were personally congratulated by Putin in a speech that was broadcast live throughout Russia. 
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  (#1) Corruption Preceded The Bombings

  Initially, Russian people and the West perceived the emergence of Boris Yeltsin as head of the Russian government with optimism. By the mid-1990s, however, Russia struggled with corruption, financial scandals and industrial wealth concentrated in the hands of a few well-connected oligarchs, which led to poverty for most Russians. On Dec. 31, 1999, President Yeltsin resigned and appointed Vladimir Putin as his successor. One of Putin's first acts was to grant Yeltsin immunity from prosecution.
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  (#8) Officially, The Bombings Were Blamed On A Russian Citizen Aided By A Chechen Warlord

  The Russian government officially claimed that Achemez Gochiyayev, a Russian citizen, was responsible for the bombings, helped by Ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi rebel warlord fighting in Chechnya. Gochiyayev, who went into hiding, said in a written statement that he was framed by an FSB agent.

  Numerous minor participants in the plot were eventually placed on trial, convicted in secret proceedings that even participating jurists declared flimsy, and sentenced to long prison sentences. Al-Khattab was killed in 2002 by a poison-laced letter, delivered by a supposedly friendly courier sent by the FSB. Gochiyayev is reportedly still a fugitive. 
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  (#9) The Bombings Helped Establish The Rule Of Vladimir Putin

  As prime minister in August 1999, Putin was still unknown by 37% of the Russian people and had an approval rating of 31%. In less than a year, following the response to the bombings and success in the Second Chechen War, Putin's approval rating rose to 84%. He was easily elected as Boris Yeltsin's successor in the elections of 2000.
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  (#3) Russia's Federal Security Service Was Accused Of Planting Bombs

  On September 22 in the Russian city of Ryazan, an apartment resident became suspicious when he saw two men carrying sacks into the basement of his building. The car had a suspicious-looking, handwritten license plate, but by the time local police were notified and arrived, the car and the men were gone. However, three 50-pound sacks were seized as well as an armed, timed detonator that was dismantled by the local police bomb squad.

  Local police and security placed Ryazan under virtual lockdown. Eventually, employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the national security agency that officially replaced the KGB, were apprehended and identified as the individuals who had placed the sacks in the apartment building. The FSB ordered the immediate release of the employees, explaining that the incident was merely a training exercise to test local responses to potential sabotage threats. When this claim was met with outrage and skepticism, official explanations became inconsistent, and the head of the FSB denied that any such exercise took place. 

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