Interviewer: [English conversation]

Lev: Yes, we might not find anything.

Interviewer: [English conversation]

Lev: Good.

Interviewer: [English conversation]

Lev: How to film? Ekaterina: Brightly, on the contrary.

Lev: Ah. Ekaterina: I filmed it too.

Lev: Okay. Ekaterina: They say it somehow creates an interesting image. But that's me in a mousse. Well, I haven't seen it, I was told that it somehow... Well, okay, yes.

Lev: Well, it's not clear from the very beginning. Ekaterina: Okay. So, about the Ryazan sugar.

Lev: About the Ryazan sugar. Summarizing what I said about the forms of activity of our commission, it can be said like this: the commission asked questions. In detail on all points where there was ambiguity, where it was unclear, which create a picture of plausibility or implausibility. There were such questions about Moscow, that's for later. And there were such questions about Ryazan. On September 22, after the Moscow houses and the Volgodonsk story — all this had already happened, three bags of sugar or with an explosive substance were found in the city of Ryazan in the basement of a house... it should be said not like that, that three bags of sugar or with an explosive substance turned out to be in the basement of the house. A resident of the house, living on the first floor above this basement, Alexei Kartofelnikov, a bus driver, was returning from work and saw that a car, an ordinary Zhiguli, old ones like that, unprepossessing, with a taped-over number, as he, a driver, immediately determined... that two people were carrying bags right into their basement. He came home and immediately called the police, the militia — it was the militia then, now we have the police, then it was the militia. He called immediately and told what he saw, because the basement door didn't close, and the whole country was already on edge, because two houses had blown up, the Volgodonsk house... near the house blew up... and on television everywhere they were constantly winding people up that everyone was in danger, they went around checking if basements and various utility rooms were closed. And here the door didn't close at all, no one fixed it. And so they carry in two bags, three bags are carried in. The police arrived from the nearest station. The district officer wasn't there, he was ill, and he was replaced by a militia district officer from another militia station. At first they drove and thought it was just some fears out of nowhere. There's a shop there, a lot of strange things, they thought something had been brought to the shop. From the courtyard is the entrance to the residential building, and from the outside a shop is attached. And this militiaman climbed into the basement to see what was lying there, and jumped out of there like he'd been scalded. He saw the bags, and on them an explosive device, a timer, all sorts of wires there. That is, at a glance, at first glance, it was nothing other than an explosive device. And every second, since it was unknown what time the timer was set for, it could have blown up, as he decided. Then he went there, they called an explosives expert, called for some backup, called the FSB, the local UFSB, the department for the Ryazan region. The head arrived, General Sergeev, with his deputies. Everyone was there, then, civil defense, emergency situations, local Ministry of Emergency Situations — everyone arrived there, all the bosses. First they evacuated the whole house. Everyone was driven as far away as possible, they tried, but people still wanted to see everything. Two people remained in the house, bedridden patients. One was alone, whom no one could carry out at all. They didn't know what to do with them. They refused to be carried out into the street. An explosives expert arrived from the Ryazan Department of Internal Affairs, a man named Tkachenko. They pulled out the bags, removed the timer. He took a sample, and it showed hexogen. And by the look of it, it was... the explosives expert said it was most likely hexogen. And hexogen traces were found in both Moscow and Volgodonsk. That is, the same story, as it were. They opened a criminal case. I'm telling the external outline first. The UFSB opened it, because it's under the jurisdiction of state security. They opened the case, announced the 'Interception' plan. That is, all suspicious cars at the exit from Ryazan were to be stopped. Any suspicious calls... there were few mobiles then, but there were some already, of course, but just in case they warned the telephone exchange, the post office. And a shift operator at the telephone exchange detected a call to Moscow, where an unfamiliar voice, let's say, an unknown one, said that they noticed, we need to leave. They were told: leave one by one, leave the car, leave one by one. But since this conversation was intercepted, these people were caught in the most heroic way and put in the KPZ, the temporary detention center. This was on the morning of the 23rd. The next day — they've already been sitting for a day — the next day at 10 am at the Ministry of Internal Affairs board — the topic of explosions was constantly the main one there — the then Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Rushailo spoke and said that thanks to the vigilance of our citizens, a terrorist act was prevented in Ryazan. There. He thanked everyone and asked everyone to be vigilant. Two or three hours after that, at two o'clock, a few hours later, the then FSB director Nikolai Patrushev speaks and says: no one found any terrorist act in Ryazan. What happened there at 14/16 Novoselov Street were anti-terrorist exercises. There was sugar in the bags. It was... and the explosive device was an imitation. After which the criminal case is closed. Well, and then events happened at the end there, that's not the point. It was canceled... the prosecutor's office canceled it, but I'll go into more detail on the details now, I'll get to that too. Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov, Karinna Moskalenko, and I — we arrived, as I already said, in Ryazan on December 28, three years later. In order to talk to the residents, to talk to those who were involved in this, with General Sergeev, who by that time had ceased to be the head of the Ryazan FSB, and became... also not a bad position, but a clean one like that, you can't compare it with the capabilities and power of the FSB. He was the presidential representative for the Ryazan region. Now it's already an elective position, now there are districts there and all that. We met with him. We wanted to talk to the militia officers of that time, it was still the militia then. With the station where everyone was from. We talked. We wanted to talk to the residents of the house, but I already said that no one wanted to talk to us. But one elderly woman talked to us. Otherwise they scolded us, didn't open the doors. And we were particularly interested in talking to this explosives expert, the engineer who conducted the first tests, the express analysis of this substance. And said, as we all already knew from publications, that it was hexogen. Well, with some additives there, I won't... I'll just give you, there's a lot of material about this, very large, detailed, what exploded or didn't explode there, and what was in Moscow, what the origin of all this was. We'll get to that. What, then, how to understand all this? It seems to me the main thing here — the very main thing — is what was in the bags, of course. What was in the bags, and was it an imitation timer or was it an explosive device, and the house was supposed to blow up. One of the versions I hold to — I don't insist on it, I just know our government system well, the relations within our government — this is like one of the options for a possible solution. And this also doesn't reflect well, doesn't reflect well at all on the current Russian government, the then and the current — it's one and the same. Well, generally historically the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have always been in difficult relations. Well, there they jailed some, then others, others jailed others, pulled the rope, who is the main silovik. Vladimir Rushailo, the Minister of Internal Affairs, was Boris Berezovsky's man. And they tried to discredit him and smoke him out of there, remove him from office. This is an objective fact. He didn't fall, but he held on for another year and a half, but then they removed him anyway. Patrushev could have — if we take the version of anti-terrorist exercises — Patrushev could have told the truth already after these people were detained. And then was the best time to say that it's like this and like that. He didn't say. Neither when they were taken, nor when the criminal case was opened, and he didn't say when Vladimir Rushailo spoke before all the honest people that it was a prevented terrorist act. He spoke immediately after Vladimir Rushailo uttered this. Since these bulldog fights under the rug are the main occupation within our political elites in quotes. This is a perfectly sound version, not at all far-fetched. For the sake of throwing out Vladimir Rushailo, they would have been ready to blow up the house too. Or not blow it up, but stage this performance. That is, the houses, of course, we don't have such a fact that they blew up the house for this. But to stage all this, this performance, not very pleasant for the residents of the house, especially for those who remained in the house. Well, and generally everyone knows that if our house is blown up, it doesn't mean that tomorrow they'll give you an apartment twice as large, like in Israel. It means you'll suffer. I'll note in parentheses that in Volgodonsk they were mainly dealing with the problems of the residents. They couldn't get normal housing. They were offered apartments of smaller area than those they lost as a result of being blown up, well, practically these houses became uninhabitable. The walls were standing there in Volgodonsk, but... So, our people understand all this in Russia, how the government behaves in such cases. And they really didn't want the apartments to blow up. Therefore, it's quite possible that Ryazan is one of these scenarios. And they, in fact, almost achieved their goal. Because it's doubly unclear... among the questions, one of the main questions arises: Vladimir Rushailo and Patrushev issued before this, after the explosion of the first house on September 9, Vladimir Rushailo and Patrushev signed a joint order on the creation of a headquarters, a joint anti-terrorist headquarters of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB. The heads of this headquarters were two co-chairs, two leaders: Vladimir Rushailo and Patrushev. It was called and the operation was announced 'Whirlwind-Antiterror', which... well, there are certain such framework rules there, which... 'Whirlwind-Antiterror' means stopping everything, checking everyone, checking documents, stopping buses, checking who is traveling in them intercity, and so on. Ekaterina: Sorry, I'll interrupt you. So, you think that the Ryazan case happened because Patrushev wanted to remove Vladimir Rushailo?

Lev: Yes. This is a very common method of discredit. Because Vladimir Rushailo... Ekaterina: Just like that?

Lev: Well no, they had it in mind. When Vladimir Rushailo was removed, a year later, though, more than a year passed, even a year and a few months, Boris Gryzlov was appointed head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Minister of Internal Affairs, who was the first deputy of the FSB, the director under Patrushev. That is, in this way, well, for some time control was established, their own man was placed on this competing territory. In fact, it was captured. An FSB general becomes the Minister of Internal Affairs. There were such cases in Soviet history, post-Soviet history. After that, ministers shot themselves there or they were jailed there... when this struggle was in an acute phase. This explains a lot, but assessing it as a whole, it, of course, doesn't explain everything. Here another episode is very important. We were also dealing with Ryazan preferably with Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov. We finally went there, we could have gone earlier, but we went as we went. We didn't go earlier because we were collecting material so that there would be questions to ask. And Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov as a deputy sent... in the spring of 2002, then we once again during 2002 sent requests to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and the Prosecutor General's Office regarding the fact that if these are exercises, then please familiarize us with the plan of these exercises. The task plan. We sent such requests, they were obliged to provide them to him because a deputy by his status has... it's clearly written there: has the right to familiarize himself even with documents containing state secrets. A refusal came from the FSB. And in the prosecutor's office we asked for the results of their check. Because at first a criminal case was opened in Ryazan, then closed when Patrushev spoke. After which the hype around this began to continue. The Prosecutor General's Office canceled it, and we wanted an official document, a resolution on why the case on the events in Ryazan was canceled. We sent these requests. We received refusals from there, despite the law on status. We went to court. Also a very important form of the commission's activity was the judicial one. Here we had two trials. One trial with the FSB, one trial with the Prosecutor General's Office. We lost the trials. The courts took their position, although it was completely illegal. This was to be expected, although we very reasonably... But such an episode is very characteristic. We were at a court hearing on a complaint against the actions of the prosecutor's office. This refusal I spoke about, to provide these documents on their check of the Ryazan events. The refusal was signed by the Deputy Prosecutor General. We then wrote again that we didn't agree, we explained our legal position and demanded that personally — in view of the extreme significance — the Prosecutor General, Ustinov was then, Vladimir Ustinov was the Prosecutor General, that he personally study this case. And the case is, in fact, simple: does a deputy have the right to look or not? He does, it's written in the law. That's all. A refusal came signed by Ustinov. A refusal came, let's say there on Thursday, suppose. And on Friday — and Ustinov's signature is there, everything is written in detail, all sorts of nonsense, all this is illegal. And on the same day when we just received this request, Ustinov himself calls Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov directly and says: 'Sergei Adamovich, well, why don't you turn to me directly?' His refusal is already lying signed by him. 'I'll provide everything to you. Come to me, I'll provide everything to you.' I wasn't in Moscow then, I remember, and Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov went. He went, they provided it to him, even gave a copy with the names of those people who, then, were there, FSB agents who were involved in these exercises, blacked out. Two men and a woman. Moreover, they even let him read these names, but not write them down. That is, like everything he wanted. There. But and he went... he went to the Prosecutor General, and the refusal lies... he said directly: 'Vladimir Vasilievich, you sent me a letter yesterday with your refusal.' He says: 'I'll check.' I know perfectly well that such signatures are put with a stamp. This is practiced. Not a copy so that a black and white one is visible, but a blue ink stamp. Yes. Well, and like there it's very characteristic. In this case, yes, they provided it. But when we challenged the FSB's refusal to provide the task plan itself... and I'll speak about the prosecutor's office's conclusions after this, what he read there. This was later sent to the State Duma too. I'll give you this document later from the Prosecutor General's Office, where they describe these events, what happened in Moscow. This is not addressed to us, but at the request of the State Duma Committee on Security. There was such an Alexander Gurov, the chairman of the committee. It was important for them to do this, he was of the pro-government faction, this Gurov, that no one is hiding anything, they say. Here the Duma turned, Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov is being tricky there and confusing and specifically discrediting us. Here we received, requested and received. And there's a little about Moscow, a little about Volgodonsk and four pages about Ryazan. And the conclusions, yes, that everything, as Patrushev said, everything was so. But... sorry, something fell here... this one... I think, this one. Yes, this. I'll read now what was in this that came to Gurov. I got this there in the Duma through my channels. The conclusion is this regarding Ryazan: 'However, the operation in the city of Ryazan was planned and carried out in an improper manner. In particular, — the Prosecutor General's Office writes, — in particular, the issue of the limits of this event was not regulated.' Very eloquently. Because everything there, the beginning is clear: bring bags of sugar there, put an imitator, clear out. And then what? Is the sugar supposed to lie there forever? Or if it's sugar. Ekaterina: And where is the text itself from?

Lev: What the Committee on Security received from the Prosecutor General's Office. Here even I have an official letterhead of the Prosecutor General's Office signed by Deputy Prosecutor General Kolmogorov. And the Committee on Security... well, distributed it among those it considered necessary. We also received it, managed to. So, the issue of the limits of this event was not regulated. About the limits of the conduct. Maybe there were exercises in Moscow too? They were just carried out to the end. The question arises. Informing was not provided for, informing representatives of local authorities or law enforcement agencies about the educational nature of the placement in case of its discovery. That is, the prosecutor's office correctly believed that even if it's exercises, then when a criminal case has already been opened, everyone has arrived, the bags have been found, pulled out, the local government should know that it's exercises. Or shouldn't it? This wasn't in the plan. We were hunting for this plan, as I already said, demanding it, we were told in every way that it's a state secret. And suddenly in the series of these events a publication appears in such a newspaper, a weekly, of such a pro-FSB direction, there was such an Artyom Borovik, a journalist, he published it. Well, a journalist like that, connected with the agencies. 'Top Secret' the newspaper is called. And there was... not 'Top Secret' itself, it's a holding, but there one part... it still comes out, I think, the newspaper is called 'Versiya'. Such a one dedicated to such legal various investigations, well, like journalistic ones. Well, all sorts of things were printed there. The editor-in-chief then was the still living Rustam Arifdzhanov. An old journalist, also tied to the agencies. He still... only he's already old, so he's deputy editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief there is another one now. And an article appeared there, signed by this Arifdzhanov himself, about what happened in Ryazan. And he, having written some general well-known facts, that bags were found there, this and that, says that I familiarized myself with the task plan and tells the story according to this plan, that such and such was commissioned. What was commissioned? To organize... so, now I'll... ah no, I don't have a copy of this here. In short, three FSB officers were sent in order to check the anti-terrorist readiness of no one knows who. And for this, this plan was developed, providing for their arrival in Ryazan, the purchase of three bags of sugar at the market, the purchase of the necessary accessories for an explosive device and one 12-gauge cartridge for this device, which should work so that the cartridge should also be for persuasiveness. They did all this, bought a cartridge in the 'Kolchuga' hunting shop. There and, then, they got caught only because of this vigilant bus driver they got caught. And their conversations were detected later and all that. There. And when we arrived... I already told about the house... Ekaterina: Where did he get the plan from?

Lev: So that was one of our main questions. Yes, right. Clarification. Didn't finish a little to the end. We, having read this article — the newspapers had a large circulation — write again that if the editor-in-chief of 'Versiya' Rustam Arifdzhanov familiarized himself with this plan, judging by his publication, if he's not lying, why can't a deputy of the State Duma familiarize himself with it? Silence on this. This was already when we filed a lawsuit, we already... before the court even considered it. This article came out just before the trial. They didn't answer us to this. And we, then, went to Ryazan and went, after it was unsuccessful with the residents, went and called them all, warned them. The police interested us and this Sergeev. The head of the FSB was already another one, it was useless to talk to him. And Sergeev was a participant in that broadcast on NTV I spoke about. There and he looked pathetic there too. But before that we went into the 'Podkova' shop. The 'Podkova' shop is the former 'Kolchuga'. It was renamed. A hunting shop. Lowered, so to speak. And it was written there that they went to the shop, bought, acquired a cartridge. Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov was a hunter, besides everything else he was an avid one. And he... we don't sell cartridges, weapons in Russia freely. You have to have, in order to buy something shooting in a shop, you have to have a hunting license. Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov had a hunting license. He's there, then, people are crowding, customers. He shows the license, says: 'Can I have one 12-gauge cartridge?' 'Please,' they say. They wrap this cartridge for him, he pays the money. 'Thank you.' Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov asks: 'Do people often buy one cartridge from you?' He says: 'Well, of course, not often, — the salesman says. — Well, there are cases when a person wants to slaughter a pig there, but he doesn't know how to slaughter it. So it's easier for him to shoot, kill it, than to slaughter it.' Well, there are many such pigs, it's unclear. There. Then, then, we stand there, some general phrases. Then the salesman goes off somewhere in a corner and looks at us. Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov was a famous person after all. He was shown on television in his time. There he was the first human rights ombudsman in Russia from '94 to '95, a year and a half. Ekaterina: Were you in Ryazan together with Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov?

Lev: Yes, yes. I was present there. This salesman guy like looks at us point-blank, and we understand that he wants to say something. And there are people milling around, and other salesmen. And he says, looking Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov in the eye: 'No one ever acquired any cartridge from us then.' This was all like... it was very strong. Another such touch. All the people were driven out for the whole night, evacuated from the house. And Tkachenko, the explosives expert, checked, then, what these bags, what was in the bags. And they didn't let them in until morning. But there are children there, and old people, and generally people standing on their feet all night. They were invited to a cinema, I don't remember the name, right opposite their house. A cinema. We went to the manager of this cinema. What how like... because we were already interested in how people reacted, and everything. She says: 'Everything was wonderful.' And this is such an elderly lady with such a large managerial past written on her. Somewhere in the Soviet agencies there or in the local committees or in the party committees she sat. Well, such a one... pro-government. And she sang to us there that we made tea for them, we brought toys for the children there, we already had a Christmas tree standing there. People sat, everyone was very pleased. Thank you, they thanked. Because when all this happened in Ryazan, journalists rushed there, naturally, immediately went to Ryazan, both Russian and foreign. And everyone also went where else to go? They went to this cinema, where she was set up that nothing was scary, everyone was pleased. There are no grounds to complain anywhere. On the contrary, they were saved. This is what she was telling me, that everyone was pleased, and she was pleased with the journalists. Such a position. The weather was wonderful. People were just tired, but the weather was warm like that, generally it's not like that at the end of September. Everything, no rain, nothing. When we talked to General Sergeev, then already the presidential representative for the Ryazan region, he says: 'Well yes, here people, I was in the newspapers, — he says, — then, that it didn't look like sugar.' He says: 'Well how, — he says, — you're just from Moscow, you don't know what our sugar is like. It's white there for you, but for us it's such that...' But if it's sugar, one of the questions arises that we asked: why was it taken to be blown up at the training ground? And then the residents of the house who saw what was scattered, what I already said... None of us, and these residents too, I'm sure, have ever seen hexogen. But they saw sugar. That it wasn't sugar, they couldn't, of course, claim it was hexogen. None of us could. But to distinguish sugar from non-sugar... Ekaterina: I can say, after I've been dealing with sugar for 20 years, that when there's a sugar... well, when there's sugar in a warehouse, you remove the sugar from there, and still this sugar remains on the floor. Generally it's very difficult to clean all this up completely. And I understand that in Ryazan everything was very thorough... no traces after everything was removed.

Lev: Nothing, of course. Ekaterina: No traces. No sugar, nothing was there. But I say, here if I... I just after 20 years of work as I worked in sugar, I know that it's very... it's very difficult to clean up like that with sugar. And if it was actually sugar, why was it cleaned up like that?

Lev: It's quite likely that there was rain, it's really hard to say which of the two is lying. Then, maybe it just washed it away. Ekaterina: In the basement.

Lev: There should have been traces in the basement, of course. But they fixed the door there immediately. When we arrived, we saw that everything was in the best possible way. Well, yes, or else... well, okay, at least like this. And we had a whole series of questions. All these questions remained unanswered. Firstly, what was the purpose of the exercises? Ekaterina: Did you ask Sergeev?

Lev: This we asked Sergeev. Well, he answered what was written: anti-terrorist operation, anti-terrorist protection. But who, actually, to protect? It's clear, you can protect terrorists there and shoot, fight in Chechnya there so that terror doesn't spread from there. That's clear at least. But it's unclear how the training of the residents of one house can help in the fight against terrorism. Residents of another house might have seen something there. And residents of, say, Tula or Tver, they won't get any smarter from the fact that there are exercises. That is, exercises should be conducted generally with the whole population. There. Or if not the population, not the residents of the house, and it seems to be pointless... What is the goal? So, how the agency employees will react. Well, they reacted quite adequately on the whole. A person in such a life climbed into the basement. After 15 minutes they arrived. And well, no one thanked them, no one said that they showed... and from all the whole course of events it's clear that they are not the objects of the exercises. Well, who else remains? Well, the FSB also reacted adequately there: a criminal case was immediately opened, the general arrived. And he, when he spoke with us, he didn't hide his resentment that he was not only not rewarded, but also fired. And it's good he caught on to another position there through his connections. Very painful. 'I, — he says, — all my life, — he says, — worked in my KGB, I even became a general there.' Already an elderly person like that. So, who then was taught and what? Here, it seems to me, looking through today, through today at those events, through this prism... it's like now... obviously, there are bags lying there, a timer is standing, but these are exercises. And no terrorist attack, but exercises. You see one thing, but in fact these are exercises. So it is now. There is no war. Why are people being jailed? We have no war, we have an SMO. A special military operation. If they call it a war, people are put in prison for it, for fakes and discrediting the army. There is no war. That is, not a war, but sugar. And everything... this is, in fact, what was really effectively taught — it's exactly this. That people see with their own eyes that it's not sugar. No, it's sugar. There was no Bucha, also sugar. And this sugar is everywhere. Ekaterina: In the end, then, your trip to Ryazan... you still... well, you, despite the fact that...

Lev: I need five minutes to fix the lighting, because the light outside... Ekaterina: I need to go out too.

Lev: Хорошо, паузу сделаем, потому что из-за того, что...