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

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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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  (#2) Four Major Detonations Occurred Over The Course Of Two Weeks

  The first apartment bombing associated with the 1999 attacks occurred on September 4 in Buinaksk, in the Dagestan region of Russia, an area that borders Chechnya. A truck bomb exploded near a five-story apartment, and it killed 68 and injured 150. Then, a bomb exploded in Moscow on September 9 in a nine-story apartment complex that killed 94 and injured 249, destroying the building. Four days later, on September 13, another Moscow apartment bombing attack occurred, killing 119 and wounding 200. The final successful bombing attack occurred on September 16 in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk, killing 17 and injuring 69.   
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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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  (#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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  (#5) A Former Government Investigator Was Jailed After Discovering Incriminating Facts

  When Mikhail Trepashkin, an FSB employee, became disenchanted with corruption in both the government and his own agency, he resigned. Trepashkin then become involved in an independent investigation into the 1999 apartment bombings spearheaded by members of the Russian parliament who were skeptical of an ongoing official cover-up. Trepashkin alleged government participation in the plot and was prepared to present his findings at a trial of two Russian Muslims who were officially being prosecuted for charges related to the bombings.

  One week before an official session that would have allowed Trepashkin to disclose facts uncovered during his investigation, he was arrested for illegal arms possession. He was eventually charged in a closed military proceeding with various offenses and given a four-year prison sentence. He was released in 2007 after alleged harsh treatment in jail. By then, the 1999 incident had receded in the eyes of the public. 
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  (#6) Former FSB Agent Litvinenko Was Poisoned After Blaming The Bombings On Russia's Government

  Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB operative, became disillusioned with both the FSB and the Russian government. In the late '90s, he and other members of the FSB held a series of press conferences alleging that senior members of the FSB had ordered them to kill or arrest innocent members of the Russian public who were considered threats to the regime.

  Fearing imminent prosecution, Litvinenko fled Russia in October 2000, and was eventually given asylum in Great Britain. In the 2002 book Blowing Up Russia, which he co-wrote with Yuri Felshtinsky, Litvinenko alleged that the FSB was behind the apartment bombings in an attempt to justify the Second Chechen War and the consolidation of Vladimir Putin's authority over the government. (The book was later banned by the Russian government.) This was only one of many allegations made by the exiled former operative. Litvinenko was murdered with a sophisticated radioactive poison in November 2006 by individuals associated with the FSB, allegedly on the orders of Putin. 
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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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  (#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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