MarinStrade@MarinStrade
For no reason at all, I feel like it’s a great time to discuss the 1999 russian Apartment Bombings.
In September 1999, explosions hit four apartment blocks in Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, killing 300+ and injuring more than 1000.
Soon after, the 2nd Chechen War began.
These attacks, and Prime Minister Putin’s response to them, helped propel him on an enormous popular wave into the presidency a couple months later.
The bombs that went off received extensive coverage.
It’s the one that didn’t go off in Ryazan I want to call your attention to.
On September 22nd, Alexei Kartofelnikov, a resident of an apartment building in the city of Ryazan noticed two suspicious men carrying sacks into the basement from a car. While the license plate indicated that the car was registered in Moscow, a sheet of paper was taped over the last two digits, and the number written on it implied that the car was local.
On September 23rd, Natalia Yukhnova, a telephone service employee in Ryazan, tapped into a suspicious phone call to Moscow and overheard the following instruction: "Leave one at a time, there are patrols everywhere". The called number was traced to a telephone exchange unit serving FSB offices. When the individuals from the car were arrested, the detainees produced FSB identification cards. They were soon released on orders from Moscow.
The position of Russian authorities on the Ryazan incident changed significantly over time. Initially, it was declared by the FSB and federal government to be a real threat.
However, after the people who planted the bomb were identified, the official version changed to "security training".
On September 24th , FSB director Nikolai Patrushev announced that it was an exercise that was being carried out to test responses after the earlier blasts.
The Ryazan FSB "reacted with fury" and issued a statement saying:
“This announcement came as a surprise to us and appeared at the moment when the ... FSB had identified the places of residence in Ryazan of those involved in planting the explosive device and was prepared to detain them.”
Why am I bringing the up now? No reason, no reason at all. I just think history is super neat!
