Analysis of the 1999 Events

...its editor-in-chief Vitaly Tretyakov, a well-informed person close to Boris Berezovsky, writes: "It is perfectly obvious that the Chechens were lured into Dagestan - they were allowed to get bogged down in this matter in order to obtain a legal pretext for restoring federal authority in the republic and starting the active phase of the fight against the terrorists gathered in Chechnya. Clearly, this was an operation of the Russian special services (not to be confused with the apartment bombings), and one politically sanctioned at the very top."

Subsequent readers of Vitaly Tretyakov see a double "message" in this:
* Yes, there is evidence that Boris Berezovsky was playing a dangerous game with terrorists, but it was in the interests of the oligarchy, which felt threatened, and with the blessing of the "top brass" (the top brass at that time was the crisis team leading Operation "Successor," acting on behalf of Boris Yeltsin, who was in the hospital: it included Boris Berezovsky, head of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin, the president's daughter Tatyana, and her future husband Valentin Yumashev).
* The second part of the "message": don't even think that these people will ever admit to being involved in organizing terrorist attacks.

A clarification is necessary here, because in the meantime, events occurred in Ryazan. They made the thesis of the guilt of the Kremlin and its secret services more popular than ever.

The Ryazan Incident

On the evening of September 22, a resident of this city in central Russia notices three people carrying some bags from a car into the basement of a house. He raises the alarm, local FSB and police officers arrive and state that the bags contain explosives and are connected to a detonator. The residents of the house are urgently evacuated, and the contents of the bags are analyzed right on the spot: they find hexogen – the explosive substance used for the previous two explosions. The local FSB begins an investigation into the fact of terrorism, everyone welcomes the vigilance of citizens and authorities led by Vladimir Putin.

A day later, a real theater begins: the head of the Russian FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, declares that the incident was an "exercise" that his employees staged to check the country's readiness for terrorist attacks, that the bags actually contained sugar, and the detonator was fake. No one believes this, as these statements followed reports of the arrest of two FSB officers who planted the explosives. Journalists collect testimonies from local officials who stick to their original version: there were indeed explosives in the bags, and neither the local FSB leaders, nor the police, nor even the regional governor were informed of any "exercises." A soldier from a nearby military base claims that he was supposed to guard "sugar bags" in a special place, the contents of which – yellowish granules – were not sweet at all.

Aftermath and Investigation

But Ryazan is forgotten almost immediately. On September 24, Russian leaders led by Vladimir Putin make exceptionally bellicose statements on Chechnya. They announce that the perpetrators of the September terrorist attacks are known, but, unfortunately, they managed to escape to Chechnya. Dozens of names have been published, among which there is not a single Chechen: there are only five Karachays – natives of another North Caucasian republic. Incidentally, our French businessman, connected with Boris Berezovsky, mentioned a backup option in case the invasion of Dagestan proved impossible: to send Chechens to "liberate" Karachay-Cherkessia, where Wahhabis were very active, and where Boris Berezovsky would be elected as a State Duma deputy in the fall.

However, the "sugar bags" were marked with this republic (where, however, there is not a single sugar factory).

At the same time, efforts are being made to hide the results of the investigation into the Moscow bombings. Thus, the mistress of the main suspect, Karachay Achimez Gochiyayev, who rented the apartment where the explosives were stored, was detained, but released that same night "for unknown reasons," as the Kommersant newspaper wrote at the time. Well known to the authorities, Achimez Gochiyayev was twice sentenced to imprisonment and twice released early.

The official version of the terrorist attacks has a discrepancy on a very important point: first, the FSB announces that hexogen was used in all cases. This word becomes so common that the first Russian writer to write a book about it, Alexander Prokhanov, called it "Mr. Hexogen". But very quickly the explosive substance was officially declared a "mixture of ammonium nitrate with aluminum powder." Explanation: hexogen, the production of which is expensive, is manufactured only for military purposes and only by the military. It becomes known from a diplomatic source that the Russian leadership rejected all offers of cooperation with foreign experts.