Blowing Up Russia (35 page)
Authors: Alexander Litvinenko
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Russia & the Former Soviet Union, #Political Science, #General, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Terrorism, #World, #Russian & Former Soviet Union, #Social Science, #Violence in Society, #True Crime, #Espionage, #Murder
I want to make a comment about its being hard to believe. It s also hard to believe that the FSB blew up the buildings in Russia. On this count, very many people agree with the sentiments and logic of the following statement by Putin. He literally screamed: What?
Blew up their own buildings? He was asked the question by a reporter. Well, you know, that s nonsense, sheer absurdity. There are no people in the Russian security services who would be capable of such a crime against their own people. Even making such a suggestion is amoral and in essence nothing but part of an information war against Russia.
So this suggestion, which is the core of Felshtinsky s and Litvinenko s book, is one that many people also find unpalatable. And nonetheless, you are investigating these circumstances, Sergei Adamovich. Hard to believe, yet what if that s what really happened?
Yuri Felshtinsky: First, I would like to emphasize that the bulk of the book The FSB Blows Up Russia isn t concerned with the events in Budyonnovsk, but with events that are more important for this book, namely, the history of the bombings in Moscow and Ryazan.
Second, I don t want to actually focus our whole discussion on a single episode, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate it might be in the opinion of the participants of the roundtable.
Third, even in the Budyonnovsk incident itself, what we wanted to call attention to was not the history, which everyone knows, but to one episode in this complex history, which no one knows about. Namely, the bribes that were being made at that point. As for Sergei Adamovich s statement that it is doubtful that all this was done for money, I would put it somewhat differently: it is absolutely clear that everything that was done in Russian politics during this period was done exclusively for money, and nothing was ever done for free. So on this score, of course, there is something to argue about.
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But I repeat that, in the interests of our listeners, I would still like to shift our discussion from the minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour sorting out of what happened in Budyonnovsk (the history of which, by the way, still hasn t been fully written - I think there s still a lot of new and interesting information that we ll probably learn some day), and to shift all of us to the main topic of the book, namely, the bombings in Russia in September 1999.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Yuri Georgievich. I completely agree with you, and as the host I want to conclude our analysis of the Budyonnovsk episode here. This episode is, in fact, hardly central to your book, and there probably wouldn t have been any book if it was only about this episode.
Oleg Petrovich Orlov - Memorial Society Board Member, Chair of the Human Rights Center (Director of Hot Spots, the same program). You were part of the Kovalyov group, worked in Chechnya during both the first and second wars. In your view, does the basic premise of the book The FSB Blows Up Russia merit public attention?
Oleg Orlov: Undoubtedly. Discussion of these issues, of the book s premise, is absolutely necessary and very useful. My opinion of this book is another matter. I d say that my attitude is considerably more critical than that of my colleagues.
You see, we are told: Let s leave aside the events of the first war, the book is about something different; you re focusing on the details, while the book is about the bombings. But in the part of the book that deals with the bombings in Moscow, I cannot check the credibility of the facts, especially since the book contains no precise references (I m not familiar with the CD). But in the part that deals with the first war - let s leave Budyonnovsk aside - many other episodes in the war are described imprecisely, to put it mildly. Or not so much imprecisely, as from an angle that s convenient for the basic interpretation of the events that runs through the entire book. And when I see such an approach, such a selection of facts, in the part of the book that s devoted to the first Chechen war, then I really do begin to have doubts about the painstaking precision and selection of facts in the other parts of the book.
It is precisely this imprecision, precisely this, shall we say, looseness in the description of the facts (Budyonnovsk is only one striking example, there are others), that practically makes this book worthless. And therefore, the very important discussion surrounding these questions - who blew up the buildings? were the security services involved in the bombings? - the level of this discussion is lowered, unfortunately, when the discussion is built around this book.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Oleg Petrovich. For clarity, for our listeners sake, let me quote from The FSB Blows Up Russia to illustrate the gist and orientation of the argument presented in the book: If during the first Chechen war of 1994-1996, the state security apparatus tried to prevent Russia from developing in a liberal democratic direction, then the political challenges of the second war were far more serious: to
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provoke Russia to start a war in Chechnya, and in the ensuing confusion, to seize power in Russia during the upcoming 2000 presidential elections. The honor of instigating this war fell to the new director of the FSB, Colonel General Patrushev.
Yuri Felshtinsky: Frankly, it would be immodest of me, as the author, to propose that the whole discussion of the September 1999 bombings should be organized around my own book. Please, let s put the book back on the shelf and simply talk about this topic, regardless of what s written in the book. The corpses are not virtual but real. With the corpses, there is no mistake - regardless of how the events are described or who is describing them.
We still have no answer to the question: who is responsible for these corpses? And if it s hard to conceive, as President Putin says, that Russian officers blew up their own buildings, with their own living citizens, then I think it s very easy to conceive that Russian officers are murdering civilians in Chechnya, and specifically not just Chechen civilians, but Russian ones as well. I think it s very easy to conceive that these buildings were not blown up by Chechens, since there s no evidence whatsoever to show that they were blown up by Chechens.
It seems to me that we are constantly narrowing down our discussion. We don t want to talk about the bombings, because the facts presented in the book might be convincing, but if we compare them to the first chapter about the events in Chechnya, then those parts of the book aren t very convincing, which means the whole book isn t very convincing, so in that case let s keep quiet and not talk about the bombings& In the end, it seems to me that what we re really interested in is not how skillfully Litvinenko and Felshtinsky presented their account. What we re really interested in is the question of who actually blew up the buildings in Russia in September 1999 and why did they do it. And I believe that we should concentrate on precisely this question. And for some reason, until we wrote this book, and until the French reporters with funding from Berezovsky made the documentary, this was a question that no one talked about.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Yuri Georgievich. That is not entirely correct, since even before the documentary (you actually describe this in your book, by the way) Duma Deputies Shchekochikhin and Ivanenko tried to file a parliamentary inquiry request with the General Prosecutor about this issue, about the circumstances surrounding the events in Ryazan. It is true, however, that their attempts to convince the Duma were fruitless.
And as a result - although, only after the documentary and after your book - a Public Commission was formed to investigate the bombings in the cities of Russia in the fall of 1999, whose head is Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov.
Sergei Adamovich, are you able to form some basic picture of the events? We are talking about an investigation, after all, and the work of an investigation consists precisely in checking different accounts. What is your account of the bombings, the account that you are checking?
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Sergei Kovalyov: If we re talking about the Commission that we created, I d only like to say that the creation of this Public Commission, with the participation of a large number of deputies, was preceded by another in a series of attempts to create a parliamentary commission. This attempt - as is the norm in our country, or in our Duma at any rate - crashed spectacularly. Although I should point out that quite a large number of deputies voted in favor of it - 180 people, quite a bit.
What are the goals of our Commission, what account of the events are we investigating?
We re examining all existing accounts of the events. As for the proposition that the security services took part in these bombings, that they organized them& It s frightening for me to believe this theory, but that doesn t mean we re rejecting it.
I would put it this way: There is no credible proof for a Chechen trail (there are very serious doubts that the Chechens could have done this). By the same token, there are no irrefutable proofs of the Kremlin scenario. There are logical arguments to be made against both of these accounts.
Could I say for certain that one of them will turn out to be false? Could I say for certain, for example, that the security services had nothing to do with it? No, I could not, not under any circumstances. Our Commission s task is to obtain credible facts.
Lev Roytman: You couldn t swear to it, but President Putin could. One would imagine that this isn t particularly conducive to your Commission s work. Am I mistaken?
Sergei Kovalyov: Generally speaking, given the circumstances, the authorities should be more interested than anyone in a thorough and objective investigation of these monstrous crimes, since all suspicions fall on them. Therefore, one would very much like to hope that the authorities will facilitate our Commission s work in various ways. Unfortunately, so far this has not happened.
Alexander Cherkasov: If we re talking about the bombings and the role of the security services in Russian history, then we can put this investigation, this book, this account of the events (as you correctly put it, it is one account) in the context of other investigations.
You know, there ve already been attempts on the part of the security services to seize power with a wave of bombings, and there were successful investigations. For example, at the end of the Narodnaya Volya ( People s Will ) movement one of its leaders, Degayev, made a deal with Sudeykin, a leader of the Okhranka, that they would organize a series of terrorist attacks and that his majesty the emperor, sorely afraid, would give Sudeykin dictatorial powers. The members of the Narodnaya Volya themselves conducted an investigation. German Alexandrovich Lopatin brought the whole matter to light. The conspiracy fell through, Sudeykin, the would-be dictator, was killed, and Degayev was permitted to emigrate. But a meticulous investigation of the specific facts of the case was carried out at the time.
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There were other instances of cooperation between the security services and terrorists.
Recall the whole Azef affair - it has quite a bit of bearing on our own case. If we assume that terrorists always take orders from the security services, then where do we put Azef?
He, it turns out, had connections to the security services and at the same time organized terrorist attacks against the Russian government. Was he, then, really totally controlled by the security services? No, the situation was more complicated.
In general, cooperation between the terrorist underground and the security services is a complex matter that has to be handled quite carefully - one has to avoid taking a onesided perspective, of assuming that everything is being controlled from a single point.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Alexander Vladimirovich. But as far as I understand the book, it makes no mention of any underground. The underground there consists of the highest ranks of the Federal Security Service, which organized everything for a specific political purpose.
Oleg Orlov: I completely agree with Yuri Georgievich when he says that people who can do what they did in Chechnya, who can treat their own people the way they treated Russian citizens in Chechnya, who are capable of lying to their own people for the entire length of the first and second war - that from such people, you really can expect such a thing, that based on general considerations, this account is highly plausible. But then we really have to look for the facts. So far, there are no facts that could conclusively prove that the security services were behind this. But that this is highly likely - yes, certainly.
Yuri Felshtinsky: I d like to draw the guests and listeners attention to the Ryazan episode. We, I mean myself and Litvinenko, are firmly convinced that in the Ryazan episode absolutely everything has been proven. I can present our account right now, in a purely formal fashion, leaving all emotions aside.
What do we know about Ryazan? We know that bags with an unknown substance were placed in the basement. We have expert testimony - the expert testimony of the Ryazan FSB, from several different experts - confirming that these bags contained explosives.
We have expert testimony about the detonator and a photograph of the detonator, confirming that the detonator was real. We have, by the way, additional testimony by independent experts from several countries, also confirming that the detonator was real.
We have a criminal investigation, which was initiated at the time because of the discovery of a real detonator and bags with explosives.
And we have totally bald-faced, false statements by the FSB, at various different stages, which at the very least tell us that the FSB is lying from start to finish about the entire Ryazan episode. We have the Vympel Special Forces Agents who were identified by the FSB itself. The FSB itself said that, yes, these particular individuals placed these particular bags - which according to expert testimony contained explosives - in the basement in Ryazan, and here is the actual detonator, which according to expert testimony is a real detonator.
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Tell me, please, what other proof do we need in the case of Ryazan? The only weak link in this whole account, so to speak, is that the building did not explode. Well, thank God!
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Yuri Georgievich. Well, I think that if we had a lawyer here representing any of the individuals who handled the bags, he would cite arguments that could refute your account of the events. Because there was additional expert testimony, and this additional expert testimony - which was now conducted by the central office of the FSB, in Moscow - this testimony revealed that there was only sugar inside the bags, and that the detonator was not real, but just a dummy, a model. This is, naturally, a matter for a public investigation, which is precisely the purpose of Sergei Kovalyov s Commission.
Blew up their own buildings? He was asked the question by a reporter. Well, you know, that s nonsense, sheer absurdity. There are no people in the Russian security services who would be capable of such a crime against their own people. Even making such a suggestion is amoral and in essence nothing but part of an information war against Russia.
So this suggestion, which is the core of Felshtinsky s and Litvinenko s book, is one that many people also find unpalatable. And nonetheless, you are investigating these circumstances, Sergei Adamovich. Hard to believe, yet what if that s what really happened?
Yuri Felshtinsky: First, I would like to emphasize that the bulk of the book The FSB Blows Up Russia isn t concerned with the events in Budyonnovsk, but with events that are more important for this book, namely, the history of the bombings in Moscow and Ryazan.
Second, I don t want to actually focus our whole discussion on a single episode, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate it might be in the opinion of the participants of the roundtable.
Third, even in the Budyonnovsk incident itself, what we wanted to call attention to was not the history, which everyone knows, but to one episode in this complex history, which no one knows about. Namely, the bribes that were being made at that point. As for Sergei Adamovich s statement that it is doubtful that all this was done for money, I would put it somewhat differently: it is absolutely clear that everything that was done in Russian politics during this period was done exclusively for money, and nothing was ever done for free. So on this score, of course, there is something to argue about.
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But I repeat that, in the interests of our listeners, I would still like to shift our discussion from the minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour sorting out of what happened in Budyonnovsk (the history of which, by the way, still hasn t been fully written - I think there s still a lot of new and interesting information that we ll probably learn some day), and to shift all of us to the main topic of the book, namely, the bombings in Russia in September 1999.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Yuri Georgievich. I completely agree with you, and as the host I want to conclude our analysis of the Budyonnovsk episode here. This episode is, in fact, hardly central to your book, and there probably wouldn t have been any book if it was only about this episode.
Oleg Petrovich Orlov - Memorial Society Board Member, Chair of the Human Rights Center (Director of Hot Spots, the same program). You were part of the Kovalyov group, worked in Chechnya during both the first and second wars. In your view, does the basic premise of the book The FSB Blows Up Russia merit public attention?
Oleg Orlov: Undoubtedly. Discussion of these issues, of the book s premise, is absolutely necessary and very useful. My opinion of this book is another matter. I d say that my attitude is considerably more critical than that of my colleagues.
You see, we are told: Let s leave aside the events of the first war, the book is about something different; you re focusing on the details, while the book is about the bombings. But in the part of the book that deals with the bombings in Moscow, I cannot check the credibility of the facts, especially since the book contains no precise references (I m not familiar with the CD). But in the part that deals with the first war - let s leave Budyonnovsk aside - many other episodes in the war are described imprecisely, to put it mildly. Or not so much imprecisely, as from an angle that s convenient for the basic interpretation of the events that runs through the entire book. And when I see such an approach, such a selection of facts, in the part of the book that s devoted to the first Chechen war, then I really do begin to have doubts about the painstaking precision and selection of facts in the other parts of the book.
It is precisely this imprecision, precisely this, shall we say, looseness in the description of the facts (Budyonnovsk is only one striking example, there are others), that practically makes this book worthless. And therefore, the very important discussion surrounding these questions - who blew up the buildings? were the security services involved in the bombings? - the level of this discussion is lowered, unfortunately, when the discussion is built around this book.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Oleg Petrovich. For clarity, for our listeners sake, let me quote from The FSB Blows Up Russia to illustrate the gist and orientation of the argument presented in the book: If during the first Chechen war of 1994-1996, the state security apparatus tried to prevent Russia from developing in a liberal democratic direction, then the political challenges of the second war were far more serious: to
193
194
provoke Russia to start a war in Chechnya, and in the ensuing confusion, to seize power in Russia during the upcoming 2000 presidential elections. The honor of instigating this war fell to the new director of the FSB, Colonel General Patrushev.
Yuri Felshtinsky: Frankly, it would be immodest of me, as the author, to propose that the whole discussion of the September 1999 bombings should be organized around my own book. Please, let s put the book back on the shelf and simply talk about this topic, regardless of what s written in the book. The corpses are not virtual but real. With the corpses, there is no mistake - regardless of how the events are described or who is describing them.
We still have no answer to the question: who is responsible for these corpses? And if it s hard to conceive, as President Putin says, that Russian officers blew up their own buildings, with their own living citizens, then I think it s very easy to conceive that Russian officers are murdering civilians in Chechnya, and specifically not just Chechen civilians, but Russian ones as well. I think it s very easy to conceive that these buildings were not blown up by Chechens, since there s no evidence whatsoever to show that they were blown up by Chechens.
It seems to me that we are constantly narrowing down our discussion. We don t want to talk about the bombings, because the facts presented in the book might be convincing, but if we compare them to the first chapter about the events in Chechnya, then those parts of the book aren t very convincing, which means the whole book isn t very convincing, so in that case let s keep quiet and not talk about the bombings& In the end, it seems to me that what we re really interested in is not how skillfully Litvinenko and Felshtinsky presented their account. What we re really interested in is the question of who actually blew up the buildings in Russia in September 1999 and why did they do it. And I believe that we should concentrate on precisely this question. And for some reason, until we wrote this book, and until the French reporters with funding from Berezovsky made the documentary, this was a question that no one talked about.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Yuri Georgievich. That is not entirely correct, since even before the documentary (you actually describe this in your book, by the way) Duma Deputies Shchekochikhin and Ivanenko tried to file a parliamentary inquiry request with the General Prosecutor about this issue, about the circumstances surrounding the events in Ryazan. It is true, however, that their attempts to convince the Duma were fruitless.
And as a result - although, only after the documentary and after your book - a Public Commission was formed to investigate the bombings in the cities of Russia in the fall of 1999, whose head is Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov.
Sergei Adamovich, are you able to form some basic picture of the events? We are talking about an investigation, after all, and the work of an investigation consists precisely in checking different accounts. What is your account of the bombings, the account that you are checking?
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Sergei Kovalyov: If we re talking about the Commission that we created, I d only like to say that the creation of this Public Commission, with the participation of a large number of deputies, was preceded by another in a series of attempts to create a parliamentary commission. This attempt - as is the norm in our country, or in our Duma at any rate - crashed spectacularly. Although I should point out that quite a large number of deputies voted in favor of it - 180 people, quite a bit.
What are the goals of our Commission, what account of the events are we investigating?
We re examining all existing accounts of the events. As for the proposition that the security services took part in these bombings, that they organized them& It s frightening for me to believe this theory, but that doesn t mean we re rejecting it.
I would put it this way: There is no credible proof for a Chechen trail (there are very serious doubts that the Chechens could have done this). By the same token, there are no irrefutable proofs of the Kremlin scenario. There are logical arguments to be made against both of these accounts.
Could I say for certain that one of them will turn out to be false? Could I say for certain, for example, that the security services had nothing to do with it? No, I could not, not under any circumstances. Our Commission s task is to obtain credible facts.
Lev Roytman: You couldn t swear to it, but President Putin could. One would imagine that this isn t particularly conducive to your Commission s work. Am I mistaken?
Sergei Kovalyov: Generally speaking, given the circumstances, the authorities should be more interested than anyone in a thorough and objective investigation of these monstrous crimes, since all suspicions fall on them. Therefore, one would very much like to hope that the authorities will facilitate our Commission s work in various ways. Unfortunately, so far this has not happened.
Alexander Cherkasov: If we re talking about the bombings and the role of the security services in Russian history, then we can put this investigation, this book, this account of the events (as you correctly put it, it is one account) in the context of other investigations.
You know, there ve already been attempts on the part of the security services to seize power with a wave of bombings, and there were successful investigations. For example, at the end of the Narodnaya Volya ( People s Will ) movement one of its leaders, Degayev, made a deal with Sudeykin, a leader of the Okhranka, that they would organize a series of terrorist attacks and that his majesty the emperor, sorely afraid, would give Sudeykin dictatorial powers. The members of the Narodnaya Volya themselves conducted an investigation. German Alexandrovich Lopatin brought the whole matter to light. The conspiracy fell through, Sudeykin, the would-be dictator, was killed, and Degayev was permitted to emigrate. But a meticulous investigation of the specific facts of the case was carried out at the time.
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There were other instances of cooperation between the security services and terrorists.
Recall the whole Azef affair - it has quite a bit of bearing on our own case. If we assume that terrorists always take orders from the security services, then where do we put Azef?
He, it turns out, had connections to the security services and at the same time organized terrorist attacks against the Russian government. Was he, then, really totally controlled by the security services? No, the situation was more complicated.
In general, cooperation between the terrorist underground and the security services is a complex matter that has to be handled quite carefully - one has to avoid taking a onesided perspective, of assuming that everything is being controlled from a single point.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Alexander Vladimirovich. But as far as I understand the book, it makes no mention of any underground. The underground there consists of the highest ranks of the Federal Security Service, which organized everything for a specific political purpose.
Oleg Orlov: I completely agree with Yuri Georgievich when he says that people who can do what they did in Chechnya, who can treat their own people the way they treated Russian citizens in Chechnya, who are capable of lying to their own people for the entire length of the first and second war - that from such people, you really can expect such a thing, that based on general considerations, this account is highly plausible. But then we really have to look for the facts. So far, there are no facts that could conclusively prove that the security services were behind this. But that this is highly likely - yes, certainly.
Yuri Felshtinsky: I d like to draw the guests and listeners attention to the Ryazan episode. We, I mean myself and Litvinenko, are firmly convinced that in the Ryazan episode absolutely everything has been proven. I can present our account right now, in a purely formal fashion, leaving all emotions aside.
What do we know about Ryazan? We know that bags with an unknown substance were placed in the basement. We have expert testimony - the expert testimony of the Ryazan FSB, from several different experts - confirming that these bags contained explosives.
We have expert testimony about the detonator and a photograph of the detonator, confirming that the detonator was real. We have, by the way, additional testimony by independent experts from several countries, also confirming that the detonator was real.
We have a criminal investigation, which was initiated at the time because of the discovery of a real detonator and bags with explosives.
And we have totally bald-faced, false statements by the FSB, at various different stages, which at the very least tell us that the FSB is lying from start to finish about the entire Ryazan episode. We have the Vympel Special Forces Agents who were identified by the FSB itself. The FSB itself said that, yes, these particular individuals placed these particular bags - which according to expert testimony contained explosives - in the basement in Ryazan, and here is the actual detonator, which according to expert testimony is a real detonator.
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Tell me, please, what other proof do we need in the case of Ryazan? The only weak link in this whole account, so to speak, is that the building did not explode. Well, thank God!
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Yuri Georgievich. Well, I think that if we had a lawyer here representing any of the individuals who handled the bags, he would cite arguments that could refute your account of the events. Because there was additional expert testimony, and this additional expert testimony - which was now conducted by the central office of the FSB, in Moscow - this testimony revealed that there was only sugar inside the bags, and that the detonator was not real, but just a dummy, a model. This is, naturally, a matter for a public investigation, which is precisely the purpose of Sergei Kovalyov s Commission.
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