Russian Apartment Bombings Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Russian Apartment Bombings were a series of bombings in Russia that killed nearly 300 people and led the country into the Second Chechen War. They happened over a span of two months in 1999.The first bombing, not of an apartment, occurred in Moscow, the Russian captial, on August 31, 1999. A bomb exploded in a mall, killing one person and wounded 40 others. A note was left saying the bombing was a result of increasing Russian consumerism.
On September 4, 1999, a car bomb detonated outside an apartment building housing Russian soldiers in the city of Buinaksk, in the province of Dagestan. 64 people were killed and dozens of others were wounded. Russia blamed Chechen separatists, who would days later invade the province from neighboring Chechnya.
On September 8, 1999, 300 kg to 400 kg of explosives detonated on the ground floor of an apartment in southeast Moscow. The nine-story building was destroyed, killing 94 people inside and wounded 150 others. 108 apartments were destroyed. A caller to a Russian news agency said the blast was a response to recent Russian bombing of Chechen and Dagestan villages in response to the invasion of Dagestan.
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 an apartment on Kashirskoye Highway in southern Moscow. The eight-story building was flattened, littering the street with debris and throwing some concrete hundreds of yards away. In all, 118 people died and 200 were wounded.
It was at this time when Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared a war against the "illegal military units" in Chechnya. Though there was not much evidence pointing to Chechens, preparations were made by the Russian military forces to re-enter the province and to strip the Chechen government of its powers.
The motive for the forceful solution was quenched when a truck bomb exploded September 16, 1999, outside a nine-story apartment complex in the southern Russian city of Volgodonsk, killing 17 people.
In response, Russia launched air strikes on Chechen rebel positions, oil refineries, and other buildings inside that province. By the end of September it was clear another war over Chechnya was underway, and by October Russian troops had entered the province. The attacks would not be the last in Russia or Chechnya.
On the evening of September 22, 1999, an alert resident of an apartment building in the town of Ryazan noticed strangers moving heavy sugar sacks into the basement from a car. Militia (the local police) were called to the site and all residents were evacuated. The first test of the powder from the sacks showed the presence of an explosive. All roads from the town were brought under heavy surveillance but no leads were found. A telephone service employee tapped into long-distance phone conversations managed to detect a conversation in which an out-of-town person suggested to take care and to watch for patrols. That person's number was found to belong to an FSB office in Moscow.
Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti declared that the incident was a training exercise one day later. The original chemical test was declared inaccurate due to contamination of the analysis apparatus from a previous test. The public inquiry committee could not come to a complete conclusion on this and other incidents due to incoherent answers from federal bodies. The General Prosecutor's office has closed the criminal investigation of the Ryazan incident in April 2000.
Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky supported a documentary film "FSB blows up Russia" ("An assault on Russia"?), financing 25% of the costs. The film accused Russian special services of organising the explosions in Volgodonsk and Moscow. According to research carried out by two French journalists, Charle Denie and Charle Gasel (spelling?), the explosions were carried out by FSB to provide justification for the continuance of the Chechen War.
External Links
The request of the Chairman of the public inquiry committee Kovalyov to the Director of FSB, April 8, 2002
- The answer of the General Prosecutor office to the request of the Duma member Kulikov, Spring, 2002.
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