Western Journalist Warnings Of Destabilization Plans

Two Western Journalists Issue Warnings

It was two well-connected Western correspondents who were the first to
publicize the fact that a radical, bold and lawless group had managed to
achieve political supremacy in the Kremlin. On 6 June 1999, the Moscow
correspondent for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Jan Blomgren,
reported that one option being seriously contemplated by this group was
“terror bombings in Moscow which could be blamed on the Chechens.”
Ten
days later, Giulietto Chiesa, the long-serving chief correspondent for the
Moscow bureau of the Italian newspaper La Stampa, commented at length on
several recent bombing incidents in Russia in an article entitled “There Are
Also Different Kinds of Terrorists,” in the 16 June 1999 issue of the weekly
Literaturnaya gazeta.17 (In a book published later that year, Chiesa revealed
that he had written the article after he had “received information concerning
the preparation of a series of terrorist acts in Russia which had the goal of
canceling the future elections.”18 For this reason, he noted, he had felt

16 On Blomgren’s article, see Patrick Cockburn, “Russia ‘planned Chechen war before
bombings,’” The Independent, 29 January 2000.
Dzhul’etto K’eza [Giulietto Chiesa], “Terroristy tozhe raznye,” Literaturnaya gazeta, 16
June 1999.
Dzhul’etto K’eza, Russkaya ruletka: chto sluchitsya v mire, esli Rossiya raspadetsya
(Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ‘Prava cheloveka,’ 2000), pp. 206-207. The Russian edition was
compelled to write the article for Literaturnaya gazeta containing “a
somewhat veiled warning.”19)
One has to distinguish, Chiesa emphasized in his Literaturnaya gazeta piece,
between “small terrorism,” or, in Italian Mafiosi terminology, “a settling of
accounts” and a completely different kind of terrorism, which can be termed
“state terrorism.” The explosion of a bomb in Vladikavkaz, North Osetiya, on
19 March 1999, which killed a reported seventy persons, Chiesa asserted,
was a likely example of state terrorism. “That criminal act,” he pointed out,
“was conceived and carried out not simply by a group of criminals. As a rule
the question here concerns broad-scale and multiple actions, the goal of
which is to sow panic and fear among citizens.”
“Actions of this type,” Chiesa went on to stress, “have a very powerful
political and organizational base. Often, terrorist acts that stem from a
‘strategy of building up tension,’ are the work of a secret service, both
foreign but also national... Terrorism of this type (it is sometimes called
‘state terrorism’ since it involves simultaneously both state interests and
structures acting in the secret labyrinths of contemporary states) is a
comparatively new phenomenon... With a high degree of certitude, one can
say that the explosions of bombs killing innocent people are always planned
by people with political minds. They are not fanatics, rather they are killers
pursuing political goals. One should look around and try to understand who is
interested in destabilizing the situation in a country. It could be foreigners...
but it could also be ‘our own people’ trying to frighten the country...”
The 19 March 1999 bombing of a market in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North
Osetiya, referred to by Chiesa as a likely act example of “state terrorism,”
was, it should be noted, the second largest terrorist attack to occur in Russia
since the beginning of the perestroika period, following a November 1996
bombing in the Dagestani city of Kaspiisk. One Western observer has
commented: “At first glance, the most likely catalyst [for the Vladikavkaz
bombing] is the Osetian-Ingush conflict... [That] conflict, however, has never
included such random acts of terror as the Vladikavkaz terror... A more likely
version involves the trouble in neighboring Chechnya... [MVD] chairman
[Sergei] Stepashin indirectly confirmed that he suspects a Chechen
connection to the bombing... [T]he Russian authorities have drastically
tightened security along the Chechen-Russian border, in what amounts to a
de facto blockade. Moscow also continues to threaten sanctions against
Chechnya.”
It will be noted that both Blomgren’s and Chiesa’s warnings

translated from the Italian original: Giulietto Chiesa, Roulette russa (Milan: Guerini e
Associati, 1999).
Ibid., pp. 207-208.
Monitor (Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC), 22 March 1999. On 16 May 1999,
three more explosions took place at a military housing complex on the outskirts of
Vladikavkaz. Officers of the 58th army based in Vladikavkaz were arrested with dozens of
kilograms of explosives in their possession. Izvestiya (29 June) reported that there were
indications that the arrested Russian officers belonged to the GRU (military intelligence).
Following these blasts, Sergei Stepashin, now the Russian prime minister, promised to
take “exhaustive measures” to end terrorism originating in Chechnya. (Monitor, 30 June
1999)
concerning future terror bombings were issued roughly three months before
the actual Moscow terror bombings of September 1999.
Of greater public significance than these two warnings by foreigners was one
issued by a Russian journalist, Aleksandr Zhilin, under the heading “Storm in
Moscow” [Burya v Moskve] in the 22 July 1999 issue of the newspaper
Moskovskaya pravda. “From trustworthy sources in the Kremlin,” Zhilin
wrote, “the following has become known. The Administration of the President
has drafted and adopted (individual points have been reported to Yeltsin) a
broad plan for discrediting [the mayor of Moscow Yurii] Luzhkov with the aid
of provocations, intended to destabilize the socio-psychological situation in
Moscow. In circles close to Tat’yana D’yachenko [Yeltsin’s younger daughter],
the given plan is being referred to as ‘Storm in Moscow.’”
“As is confirmed by our sources,” Zhilin went on, “the city awaits great
shocks. The conducting of loud terrorist acts (or attempts at terrorist acts) is
being planned in relation to a number of government establishments: the
buildings of the FSB, MVD, Council of Federation, Moscow City Court, Moscow
Arbitration Court, and a number of editorial boards of anti-Luzhkov
publications. Also foreseen is the kidnapping of a number of well-known
people and average citizens by ‘Chechen rebels’ who with great pomp will
then be ‘freed’ and brought to Moscow by Mr. [Vladimir] Rushailo [the newly
appointed head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs].”
Actions employing the use of force, Zhilin continued, in summarizing the
leaked document, “will be conducted against structures and businessmen
supporting Luzhkov.” In addition, “a separate program has been worked out
directed at setting organized crime groups in Moscow against one another
and provoking a war among them.” Relations with the Communist Party of the
Russian Federation would also intentionally be aggravated. All of these
measures, taken together, would implant in Muscovites, Zhilin concluded, “a
conviction that Luzhkov had lost control over the situation in the city.”
In a subsequent article, Zhilin revealed that the “Storm in Moscow” document
he had cited in his earlier piece had been dated 29 June 1999 and that a
copy of it had come into his possession on 2 July. “Since the information
contained in that document was very serious and had ramifications for the
safety of Muscovites,” he recalled, “I passed a copy of it to the deputy
premier of Moscow, Sergei Yastrzhembskii. I also showed the document to
my colleagues from TV. Everyone said that this could not be true... Today I
understand that those journalists who rejected even the theoretical
possibility of the existence of a plan of destabilization in Moscow, one that
included terrorist acts, were reasoning like normal, decent people. They could
not understand in their minds how, for the sake of some political goals,
someone could commit such barbaric acts.”
One of the editors of the supplement to Moskovskaya Pravda in which Zhilin
had published his “Storm in Moscow” piece subsequently identified Sergei

21 Aleksandr Zhilin, “Burya v Moskve,” Moskovskaya pravda, 22 July 1999.
Aleksandr Zhilin, Grigorii Vanin, “Burya v Moskve. Sushchestvuet li sekretnyi plan
destabilizatsii obstanovki v stolitse,” Novaya gazeta, 18 November 1999.
Zverev, a deputy head of the Russian Presidential Administration, as the
likely source for the leaked document.23 It might also be noted that Sergei
Yastrzhembskii, the then deputy premier of Moscow, to whom Zhilin had
passed a copy of the document, had previously worked as Yeltsin’s press
secretary and as a deputy head of the Presidential Administration from
August 1996-September 1998.
His loyalties appeared to be unclear. In
January of 2000, he returned to the Kremlin as an assistant to then acting
president Putin.25 The authors of the volume The Yeltsin Epoch have identified
Yastrzhembskii as “a person prepared to play according to the rules of the
[Yeltsin] ‘Family.’”26
As Aleksandr Zhilin has underscored, the information aired in his 22 July
article—a month and a half before the Moscow terror bombings—was largely
ignored, because what he was claiming appeared to be unthinkable: namely,
that a radical group ensconced at the very top of the Russian state would
actively seek to implement measures aimed at massively destabilizing both
the nation’s capital and Russia as a whole.