Georgia. Caucasus region

"Anti-Western rhetoric has never been so poisonous since the fall of the USSR"

Chechen combatants are officially equated to terrorists. They are accused of being the authors of the deadly explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk—about 300 deaths between August 31 and September 16.

The Russian authorities pursue a dual goal: on the one hand, to subdue Chechnya; on the other, to restore their guardianship over the South Caucasus.

Gazeta Wyborcza ("Election Newspaper"), Warsaw

10.09.99. Terrorist attack? Gas explosion?

Nightmare in Moscow. An explosion turned an 8-story residential building into a pile of ruins. The death toll could rise to a hundred. The explosion was so powerful that it damaged 14 surrounding buildings (Wacław Radziwinowicz).

Photo. Explosion exactly at midnight. Is this a coincidence?

When we were finishing this issue of "Gazeta", there were 32 dead and more than 150 wounded; 80 people remained under the rubble. 1.2 thousand lost the roof over their heads.
[unnamed policeman on duty - eyewitness] - More than 200 people lived in these two entrances. No one will come out of this hell alive [42-year-old Viktor Gerasimov, resident].

Was it hexogen?

According to the Federal Security Service of Russia, the force of the explosion was equivalent to 20 kg of TNT. Everyone is asking themselves only one question—what exploded. Gas? A bomb?

In the morning, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that gas had exploded. In the evening, however, no one confirmed this version anymore.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said that the echo of the war in the Caucasus had reached the capital. "The bandits wanted to take revenge for their defeat in Dagestan," he stated in the evening.

According to Luzhkov, hexogen exploded in the house—an explosive material used exclusively in military charges. Its explosive force is twice that of TNT.

The Interfax agency reports that yesterday an anonymous man called its Moscow editorial office and, speaking with a "distinct Caucasian accent," stated that "the explosions in Buynaksk and Moscow are a response to the Russian bombings of villages in Dagestan and Chechnya."

Radio "Ekho Moskvy" even claimed that the FSB is already looking for the perpetrators of the explosion. Allegedly, their portraits, made from memory, are already ready. [the situation in the country is getting worse].

15.09.99. The ghost of a purge

[purge - a term with the label "polit.", borrowed from a neighboring language, having no related words]. The Russian Prime Minister wants a revision of the peace with Chechnya. The Moscow street is confident that the "Chechen trace" leads to the actual perpetrators. People demand a bloody response in the rebel republic and applaud the policemen detaining people of "Caucasian appearance" on the streets (Wacław Radziwinowicz).

Photo of a mass roundup: about a hundred people squatting.

On the night from Monday to Tuesday after the explosion on Kashirskoye Shosse, the southern districts of Moscow did not sleep. Residents every minute set the police on their feet with successive alarms about real and imaginary bombs. In the basement of a house near Borisovskie Prudy, sappers called by residents found 50 bags, in which—as the heralds of the Federal Security Service claim—there was sugar mixed with explosive materials.

Vladimir Rushailo, the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, stated yesterday that in other places in Moscow, warehouses with 3,080 kg of explosive materials were discovered.