Detonator found in the bags with "sugar"

And yet neither the Ryazan residents nor the invited experts understood the Chekist logic. You say that Rushailo personally signed the order to conduct the exercises? In that case, how could he have so sincerely forgotten about it that he gave the impression of being an absolutely uninformed person? Why, when police bomb disposal experts arrived thanks to a vigilant resident suspicious bags, did they immediately establish that the burlap was filled not with sugar, but with a lethal mixture based on hexogen?

Archive of "Novaya"

...your responsibility for terrorism. The FSB did indeed open a case after that very night. Why? No, not against themselves—don't distort things, comrades. This was done to convince the public that a terrorist attack was not being prepared. Let us explain. These are the same officers who placed the bags in the basement of the house. Such people are always on duty, so we cannot say more about them, alas, despite all our desire. They conducted an express analysis, we confirm. They tasted it; well, it was a bit bitter, so they took all three bags to Moscow for examination. That's just the kind of sugar you have in Ryazan. Human rights have nothing to do with it—the exercises were conducted legally. Our principles of tactical methods for operational-search activities state that we not only can conduct exercises, but must. Here is a packet with us, can everyone see? In its material-paper womb are the main proofs that this was not a prepared terrorist attack at all, which, as you say, we want to cover up. No, no, the packet is sealed; these are investigative materials, we cannot open and show them. No, we are not nervous, and you should stop with the insinuations. As for what that traitor Oleg Kalugin just said during the video link with America, we won't even comment on that. He is an enemy to us. Your experts—they don't understand Chekist work. You need to talk to specialists, and you don't have any here. We know you had to worry; of course, forgive us, but we were trying for the sake of the people. How do you not understand, what kind of people are you!

By the middle of the broadcast, the faces of the counterintelligence officers expressed overt love for all truth-seeking humanity. And here, according to the plan of the Lubyanka scriptwriters, audience support was supposed to change the course of the program.

...one then still little-known lawyer turned to the Ryazan residents with an appeal: right here, in the studio, sign lawsuits and further begin a legal battle with the FSB.

That was too much. How useful my long-held dream would have been that evening—not to turn off the cameras after the broadcast. Sometimes the most interesting thing is how, outside the framework of formal communication, the studio guests perceive what has just happened with their direct participation.

Probably, with the mood the FSB men had by the end of "Independent Investigation," they fight off from superior enemy forces. As soon as the parting words were spoken, those who had ingloriously tried for the good of the people rushed to the exit, avoiding in every way the now non-obligatory explanations with those they had cared for. But, passing through the center of the studio, holding folders and a bulky packet with unshown evidence, the Lubyanka representatives accidentally ran into the lawyer who was still collecting signatures and the host who had not yet managed to leave his place. Instead of a farewell, they threw a phrase at both: "You wait for interrogation!", "And we'll put you in jail!".

It became clear that they were definitely finished with the exercises.

About three weeks later, activists from the house opposite approached me, fed up with the round-the-clock parking of suspicious cars. It was said that at a meeting of residents they had analyzed the situation and reached a simple conclusion: they could only be tailing me. At the same time, they promised: if anything happened to me, the caring neighbors would certainly report their observations to the proper authorities. Probably, looking at everything happening from the side, one really wanted some kind of resolution.

By that time, there was already information from a Kremlin source that the main TV viewer Putin very much disliked the program about the Ryazan "exercises." As is already known, this had been made unequivocally clear to my bosses even earlier. And yet this did not prevent them from nominating "Ryazan Sugar" for the TEFI award almost without hesitation. At that time, too much was already happening around NTV. It was too late to be afraid. But our TV academics are practical people, and in the "Journalistic Investigation" category, they awarded the victory to a popular science program about Ebola fever.

Overt surveillance stopped only a month before the demise of the old NTV. Probably, they realized that I was a lost cause for them. I didn't crawl back with an all-forgiving question: what should I do to atone? (Later, while working at Channel One, I was offered to do this.) I didn't go crazy from paranoia. The only thing left was to take away my commentary work and my author's program. Saltykov-Shchedrin called this the sealing of the mind.