Incident Details

• When Kovalev, the director of the FSB, was on a business trip in Chechnya, Umar Pasha arrived there and said that people were ready to hand over Basaev and point out the place where he would be meeting someone.
• "Give us forty thousand dollars."
• Kovalev said: "No, give us Basaev first."
• Then Umar Pasha said: "He might not be alive. He might be killed."
• Kova

lev: "Give him to me even dead, then I'll give the money."
* Umar agreed.
* They arrived at some trailer. "There," they said, "is Basaev, but it's dangerous to go in there."

They shot up this trailer with assault rifles and machine guns. Then they dragged the corpses out of there. Basaev was not among them. They were some peasants. Seven or eight corpses were pulled out. Kovalev said: "If I had given the money, then what? Basaev isn't there."

They buried them and left. And Kovalev was glad that he didn't give the money. And he kept reproaching Umar Pasha: "You ask for such money, some peasants were shot, but no Basaev?" And Umar replied: "They shot too early. We should have waited. He would have arrived"...

Ryazan Operation

• Why did the FSB try to blow up a house specifically in Ryazan?
  • Because the Ryazan Airborne Division is fighting in Chechnya and airborne units were supposed to start an operation there.
  • On the one hand, they were preparing an explosion to show that it was terrorism, and on the other, to set the paratroopers against the Chechens, to kindle a sense of revenge in them.

After all, what is a city where a cadet studied for four years?
* It means they have wives from Ryazan, relatives, friends.
* For any paratrooper, this is a cradle. He arrived as a beardless boy, and there they made a man out of him. And he is proud of this all his life.
* In Ryazan, he was given a blue beret and a telnyashka [striped undershirt].
* For any paratrooper, an explosion in Ryazan is a personal insult.

There must have been a mass of employees there who were used blindly:
* Installers, drivers, even explosives experts who prepared the bombs.
* After all, they were not warned in advance what all this was for.
* And those who hid the loose ends after the failure in Ryazan? Dozens of people were involved there. Someone among them must show up. At least one person! I believe that he will appear...