In late 1999, a series of explosions destroyed apartments across Russia. When Chechen separatists were found guilty of orchestrating the attacks, the Second Chechen War began, and Vladimir Putin’s popularity skyrocketed. Today, the bombings have become one of the most debated episodes in modern Russian history, with many questioning the official account. This article examines the incidents, the theories, and the reasons why, even after more than twenty years, the truth behind the Russian apartment bombings remains a mystery.
Timeline of the Apartment Bombings
Even before the bombings began, the Russian government was accused of having prior knowledge of what was to come. In July 1991, Russian journalist Aleksandr Zhilin wrote an extensive article accusing the Federal Security Services (FSB) and the government of planning a series of terrorist attacks.
He cited a leaked Kremlin memo as evidence, according to which Boris Yeltsin had ordered the bombings to weaken his political opponents in the Kremlin and give credence to his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin, who had positioned himself as a defender of law and order.
According to Zhilin, Konstantin Borovoi, a member of the Russian parliament, received an anonymous tip-off from an agent of the military intelligence services that a bombing was to take place on September 9. However, when this information was passed on to the president, it was completely ignored, and no action was taken.
Just as these warnings had predicted, on September 9, a huge explosion tore down an apartment complex in a Moscow suburb, killing 106 people and leaving nearly 300 injured. The bombing had been preceded by a number of smaller-scale acts of terrorism on August 31, when a car bomb detonated outside a Moscow shopping center, and on September 4, when an apartment building in Buynaksk was attacked, killing 64 people. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the attacks and shortened his planned trip to the 1999 APEC summit to supervise the Russian government’s response.
The bombings continued on September 13, when over one hundred people were killed after an explosive device was detonated in the basement of an apartment building in Moscow’s Kashirskoe area. However, two further bombings were prevented after Russian police received a mysterious tip-off from local businessman Achemez Gochiyaev, who later claimed that an operative of Russia’s intelligence service had rented out a basement belonging to him and arranged for explosives to be delivered there. Gochiyaev’s role didn’t end there; a government inquiry eventually found him guilty of masterminding the terrorist attacks from the start.
Strangely, on September 13, Russian politician Gennady Seleznyov gave an announcement to parliament that a truck bombing had occurred in the city of Volgodonsk. However, this proved premature as no such attack had yet occurred. Three days later, a truck did explode in Volgodonsk, killing 17 people and leaving nearly 70 injured. In response, Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military to be put on high alert and to begin guarding key infrastructure sites.
No further bombings occurred for several days until September 22, when a resident of an apartment building in Ryazan contacted the police, informing them of suspicious individuals loading sacks into the basement of a tower block. When local police arrested these strange individuals, they announced themselves as agents of the Russian intelligence services and produced valid identification. They were soon released and returned to the headquarters in Moscow.
The official explanation for the behavior of the FSB operatives was that they were carrying out a routine training exercise to test the response times of local officials, although no further explanation was given. Undoubtedly, the bombings in 1999 and the events surrounding them had a profound effect on Russian history. While official investigations implied that Chechen terrorists were involved, a number of contradictions and hasty declarations stoked rumors of state collusion.
Official Government Investigations
The official investigation into the blasts concluded almost as soon as it had begun, and by 2000, seven people were found guilty of planning and executing the attacks. Achemez Gochiyayev, the same local businessman who tipped off security forces about two potential attacks, was found guilty of organizing a group of Chechen insurgents to carry out the attack.
Achemez Gochiyayev claimed his innocence and stated that security services had approached him to use his basements as storage facilities. No evidence was produced to back up his claims, and Gochiyayev is currently a fugitive and has not been seen since 2002.
Alongside Gochiyayev, the militants Abu Omar al-Saif and Ibn al-Khattab, who fought alongside Chechen insurgents, were also accused of carrying out the attacks. During the Second Chechen War, both men were killed in action. According to the official investigators, the explosives used in the bombings were sourced from a local fertilizer factory in Chechnya. However, this contradicted earlier reports that the explosives used in the bombings were a highly specific form of Hexogen, a chemical explosive that could only be found in heavily guarded military facilities managed by the FSB.
Attempts at an Independent Investigation
Because of the numerous unanswered questions that remained after the bombings, several independent investigations were attempted. An effort by local officials to launch an inquiry into the attempted bombing in Ryazan was turned down in the Russian parliament by Vladimir Putin’s Unity Party, which voted to seal official records about the incident for 75 years.
An independent committee was opened in 2002 by Sergei Kovalyov, a Russian parliamentary representative, to look into the bombings. The investigation was doomed from the start as it faced widespread opposition and resistance from officials. Tragically, committee member Otto Lacis died in a car accident in 2005, and two key committee members, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, both died under suspicious circumstances in 2003.
One committee member assigned by Kovalyov who did manage to uncover additional information behind the bombings was lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin. Allegedly, witnesses confirmed to Trepashkin that an FSB officer had rented out the basement of one of the buildings involved in the bombing, just as Gochiyayev had claimed. However, before he could deliver his results, Trepashkin was arrested on suspicion of possessing illicit weapons and disclosing state secrets.
Allegations of Russian Government Involvement
Due to the considerable unanswered questions that surround the Russian apartment bombings, a large number of people remain of the opinion that the attacks were an inside job perpetrated by the FSB. By far the biggest proponent of this theory is American journalist and historian David Satter, who was supported in his own investigation by former Russian security official Alexander Litvinenko, among many others.
Satter alleges that the bombings were a successful false flag operation orchestrated by the Russian state to garner public support for a new full-scale war in Chechnya and to solidify Vladimir Putin’s ascent to power. He claims that the bombs were a standard tactic that the KGB had used in the past. Significantly, just a few months after the bombings, the pro-Putin party Unity rose to prominence, and Vladimir Putin became president as a result of the second war in Chechnya, which increased Putin’s popularity and solidified his position among the people.
According to Satter’s testimony before a US House of Representatives special committee, a strategy was created to select a successor who would not only ensure Yeltsin and his family received state pardons for their corrupt activities, but would further safeguard the division of Russian state property among the elite. According to Satter, this operation required a large external provocation, such as a terrorist attack or foreign war, to be successful.
The apartment bombings in Moscow, Baikal, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, in Satter’s opinion, were this provocation. In addition to claiming 300 lives, these acts sparked a fresh conflict with Chechnya that developed into the Second Chechen War. Putin gained popularity and was elected president. He soon granted Yeltsin immunity from prosecution as soon as he took office after Yeltsin announced his early resignation.
The Assasination of Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent of the Russian Federal Security Service, was one of Satter’s main sources of information and a key ally. Litvinenko was a vocal opponent of the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin and coined the term “mafia state” to describe the state of post-Soviet Russia.
In the book Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within, co-authored with Yuri Felshtinsky, Litvinenko outlined his allegations that the FSB had plotted the apartment explosions in Russia in order to justify the Second Chechen War and bolster Putin’s authority. These shocking claims and his personal investigations into high-level corruption in the Russian government made him a target of Putin’s security services.
In November 2006, after meeting a friend for tea at a local cafe, Litvinenko was rushed to a local hospital with acute signs of poisoning. Blood tests revealed that Litvinenko had somehow ingested polonium-210, a rare and extremely radioactive substance, and the resulting damage to his internal organs was irreversible.
During his dying moments, Litvinenko charged that Putin and the Kremlin had a direct hand in his murder. According to the findings of a British public inquiry concluded in 2016, Vladimir Putin “probably approved” Litvinenko’s killing, which was possibly carried out by former FSB officials Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun. This assassination not only strained relations between Russia and the UK but also highlighted the dangerous degree of repression of political opposition in Russia.
Putin’s Rise to Power & The Second Chechen War
Today, more than two decades since the Russian apartment bombings, it is almost impossible to imagine a world in which Vladimir Putin is not the president of Russia. However, in 1999, Putin was a relatively unknown figure who did leave a particularly memorable first impression. He was the deputy leader of the Russian Unity Party, led by then-president Boris Yeltsin, which had a dismal approval rating of just two percent.
The apartment bombings in 1999 changed Putin’s fortunes almost overnight. The bombings were almost immediately blamed on Chechen separatists, which sparked fear across the country and increased support for a full-scale military invasion of Chechnya, a war that Putin would lead directly.
Putin took a hardline approach to the bombings and authorized an aerial bombing campaign against parts of Chechnya and an assault to bring the region under full Russian control. In March 2000, Russia held its presidential elections, and despite an unremarkable campaign, Vladimir Putin and his Unity Party won with more than half of the votes counted.
The consequences for Chechnya were profound. Despite the fact that no Chechen, including field commanders, accepted responsibility for the attacks, Russian officials did not hesitate to attribute the bombings to the Chechens. Chechen rebels were confronted in open warfare by Russian military and pro-Russian Chechen paramilitary forces during the first operation, which resulted in the capture of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, following a winter siege that lasted from December 1999 to February 2000. Although Chechen terrorist opposition throughout the North Caucasus region continued to inflict several Russian deaths and challenge Russian political control over Chechnya for several years, Russia achieved direct sovereignty over the territory in May 2000.
