Apologists For Berezovsky And The Chechen War Conspiracy

Aleksandr Gol’dfarb Comes to Berezovsky’s Defense

In 2009, a close ally of Berezovsky, a resident of the United States,
Aleksandr Gol’dfarb, in effect admitted what the oligarch had earlier heatedly
denied: “In two words,” Gol’dfarb wrote, “in the spring of 1999, on the
threshold of the autumn elections, there was achieved a secret agreement
[dogovorennost’] between Basaev and Udugov, on the one hand, and the
Kremlin top leadership, on the other, for a short victorious (for Russia) war in
the Caucasus.” Gol’dfarb’s source for this information was clearly Berezovsky.
And Gol’dfarb’s account then continued: “Udugov to achieve this end even
flew to Moscow. It was proposed that in response to the provocations of the
wahhabis in Dagestan Russia would begin limited military actions which
would be crowned by the return of the Upper Terek [Nadterechnyi] district of
Chechnya. As a result, the Maskhadov regime in Groznyi would fall, and his
place would be taken by Basaev and Udugov.” Following these developments,
the account went on, Basaev and Udugov “would repudiate the idea of
separatism and remain within the Russian Federation in exchange for full
freedom of action and the de facto introduction of the Sharia...” Berezovsky,
Gol’dfarb frankly admitted, “knew about this plan and even discussed it with
Udugov and the then premier Stepashin, but he opposed it. The main

134 Aleksandr Khinsthein, “Berezovaya kasha,” MK.ru, 22 September 1999.
adherents of the plan were Stepashin and Putin, who, in the capacity of
secretary of the Security Council answered at that time for Chechnya.”135

Andrei Piontkovskii Skewers Two Berezovsky Apologists

In the year 2000 and then, again, in 2009, a leading liberal Russian political
analyst, Andrei Piontkovskii, a corresponding member of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, sought to make short work of two outspoken
Berezovsky apologists. In the year 2000 article, entitled “The Doomed City,”
Piontkovskii assailed an article that had been written by the chief editor of
the Berezovsky-owned Nezavismaya gazeta, Vitalii Tret’yakov, who had
attempted in a piece published on 12 October 1999, to defend a plan to
ignite a new war in Chechnya.
“It is perfectly clear,” Tret’yakov had been
prepared to admit, “that the Chechens were lured into Dagestan and allowed
to get involved there so as to have a legal pretext to restore federal authority
in the republic and begin the active phase of the fight against terrorists
gathered in Chechnya. This was clearly an operation planned by the Russian
secret services (don’t confuse it with the [September] apartment block
bombings) and was approved at the very top.”
Tret’yakov’s admissions served as a source of scandal for Piontkovskii: “Let’s
look at this text,” he wrote, “invaluable for historians, psychiatrists and
lawyers in the way it opens a little window onto the sickly conscience of
Russia’s ‘political elite.’” “Tret’yakov,” Piontkovskii went on, “doesn’t clothe
his words in journalistic speculation. He writes about the secret services
organizing Shamil Basaev’s raid as indisputable fact, something obvious to
well-informed readers... Thus the ‘Russian political elite’ takes it as a fact
that Basaev’s attack, which led to the deaths of hundreds of Russian solders
and Dagestani civilians and left dozens of villages in ruins, was approved by
the secret services and ‘approved at the very top.’” “But if this is the case,”
Piontkovskii summed up his argument, “then in what way are the president
and prime minister, who approved the operation, the oligarch who actively
participated in it, and the editor who proudly wrote about it any different
[from] the international murderers Basaev and Khattab?”
Aleksandr Gol’dfarb’s 2009 “revelations” elicited a similar venomous reaction
from Piontkovskii: “Gol’dfarb,” he began, “clumsily trying to shield
Berezovsky, as Tret’yakov did before him, talks about too much... Through
the lips of Gol’dfarb, Berezovsky admits, finally, that about which ten years
ago Tret’yakov innocently let us know. On the threshold of the elections,
Stepashin, Putin and Berezovsky discussed with the international terrorist
Basaev a plan for a campaign by the latter into Dagestan. That plan was
carried out and, as a result, there perished hundreds of Russian soldiers and

135 Aleksandr Gol’dfarb, “Teoriya i praktika bol’shogo vzryva,” grani.ru, 29 September
2009. Gol’dfarb elaborated upon this version in two subsequent articles: “Proklyatie
Frankenshteina,” grani.ru, 9 October 2009 and “Latynina o teraktakh: vse ne tak,”
grani.ru, 5 April 2010.
Andrei Piontkovsky, “The Doomed City,” The Russia Journal, 3-9 April 2000.
Vitalii Tret’yakov, “Goniteli sem’i i annibaly ‘Otechestva,’” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 12
October 1999.
hundreds of peaceful Dagestanis and a bloodbath was unleashed in which
tens of thousands of people have perished... This was a crime no less large-
scale and repugnant than the bombings of the apartment houses which
followed after [in September], no matter who committed them.”138

Candid Admissions by Former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin

During the period separating his ouster as prime minister in August of 1999
and the election of Putin as Russian president in March of 2000, the former
silovik Sergei Stepashin made a number of striking admissions concerning
the planning of the top Russian leadership to launch a new war in Chechnya.
One motive behind his granting of a series of candid interviews could have
been irritation that Putin and Russian military “hawks,” led by the chief of the
Russian General Staff, Anatolii Kvashnin, had in September brusquely
jettisoned his original plan to take only the northern tier of Chechnya (up to
the Terek River) deciding instead to occupy the entire republic.
In a February 2000 interview with the German periodical Frankfurter
Rundschau, Stepashin made the following admissions:

Journalist: When did the preparations for the second war begin?
Stepashin: In March 1999 after the abduction of General Shpigun it
became clear to us that Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov was not
capable of fighting terrorism independently... We decided to close the
border, create a sanitary cordon around Chechnya—like the Berlin wall.
We bolstered the MVD divisions in the border regions.
Journalist: But an invasion of Chechnya was not on the table?
Stepashin: Yes [it was]. In the summer, in July [1999], we decided to
seize territory [in Chechnya] north of the Terek. [My italics] Since
Tsarist times this was Russian territory, populated mostly by Cossacks...
We hoped that the [Slavic] population that had abandoned this territory
would return. We planned to use this territory to stage special
operations into Chechnya to capture Basaev and other gang leaders. The
Terek was supposed to become a natural frontier.
Journalist: Does this mean that Russian forces would have entered
Chechnya even if there had been no attack on Dagestan and no acts of
terrorism in Moscow?
Stepashin: Yes.

Andrei Piontkovskii, “Taina zachatiya,” grani.ru, 2 October 2009. An attempt was
made by the regime to charge Piontkovskii with political “extremism” in mid-2007. See:
Alan Cullison, “Kremlin Cracks Down on Party of Putin Critic,” Wall Street Journal, 1 June
2007.
“The Generals Wanted a Revanche,” Frankfurter Rundschau, 21 February 2000.
English translation in: Miriam Lanskoy, War of the Russian Succession: Russia and
Chechnya, 1996-1999, vol. 1, pp. 244-245. (Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Boston University, 2003).
It should be underscored here that Stepashin candidly admitted that an
invasion of Chechnya had been planned and authorized by himself, and,
implicitly, by Vladimir Putin and other Russian siloviki, presumably with
President Yeltsin’s consent, before the incursions by rebels into Dagestan in
August and September of 1999 had occurred. This strikes one as an
extraordinarily significant admission. (It should also be noted that Stepashin
was probably not being entirely candid about March 1999 representing the
point of inception of plans for an invasion. He, Putin and other siloviki had
likely discussed such plans before then.)
Stepashin made roughly the same admissions to Michael Gordon of The New
York Times in an interview published in the newspaper’s 1 February 2000
issue. “Work on the plan [of an invasion],” Gordon summed up Stepashin’s
revelations “began in March [1999] when Mr. Stepashin was interior minister
and continued after he was appointed prime minister in May. The goals were
modest: sealing Chechnya’s frontiers and establishing a buffer around the
republic.” “In July [1999],” Gordon continued, “the plan was broadened to
include the seizure of the top third of Chechnya, down to the Terek River...
Commando raids would be conducted throughout Chechnya to ferret out
rebel leaders. But there would not be any ground operations south of the
river and certainly no heavy street fighting in Grozny. ‘The idea was to
conduct special operations to destroy the bandits, employing the kind of
tactics the Israelis use,’ Mr. Stepashin recalled. It was not just a planning
exercise, he said, but an actual decision on strategy.”
In an earlier interview, published in September 1999, Stepashin had
addressed the question of Berezovsky’s negotiations with radical Chechen
leaders (i.e., opponents of separatist president Aslan Maskhadov), such as
the ideologue Movladi Udugov, in the run-up to the August incursion into
Dagestan. What, the journalist asked Stepashin, did he think of the
publication in the Russian press of alleged wiretaps of conversations between
Berezovsky and the extremists?
Stepashin: By their voices they are very similar [i.e., to the voices of
Berezovsky, Udugov and other Chechen radical leaders]. In principle such
negotiations were possible, and, as far as I know, they were conducted. [My
italics] I am aware of Berezovsky’s ideology on that account: when he was
executive secretary of the CIS he and I discussed these themes more than
once. His ideology was this: everything can be bought. It is senseless to
make war with Chechnya because we are a weak state. In Berezovsky’s
opinion it was necessary to buy the Chechens. After all he wanted to
construct in Chechnya a filial of [his car company] Avtovaz...”
The journalist then asked Stepashin whether Berezovsky’s negotiations with
the radical Chechen leaders had been aimed at igniting a conflict “so that the
Kremlin’s candidate, Vladimir Putin, could demonstratively extinguish the
conflict”? In response, Stepashin advanced an intriguing alternative version:
“As for the version of a conspiracy, [one needs to realize that] having

140 Michal R. Gordon, “A Look at how the Kremlin Slid into the Chechen War,”
nytimes.com, 1 February 2000.
Mark Deich, “Portret bez intrigi,” MK.ru, 18 September 1999.
provoked a war, it is difficult in that region to quickly gain a victory... It is
another matter [altogether] that certain agreements were possible, in order
to destabilize the situation and to bring it under Emergency Rule. [My italics]
Now that is a version.”
What Stepashin appeared to be saying here was that Berezovsky and his
allies (including Stepashin himself) were seeking at the time to provoke a
limited conflict, one which would permit the Yeltsin regime to declare
Emergency Rule in Russia and thus to postpone the parliamentary and
presidential elections scheduled for December 1999 and March 2000. Once
again, this strikes one as a key admission.
During an August 2009 interview with Evgeniya Al’bats, Berezovsky drew a
similar picture to that provided by Stepashin but sought to shift the onus for
igniting the conflict onto the siloviki and Boris Yeltsin:

Al’bats: The raid of Basaev into Dagestan and as a result the second
Chechen war: some Russian mass media have written that it was you
who financed the operation of Basaev?
Berezovsky: That was an absolutely professional operation of the FSB,
without any doubts. Stepashin at the time was prime minister, and I
related to him my conversation with a number of Chechen leaders, who
were planning an action in August of 1999. To my surprise, Stepashin
said: ‘Don’t get upset. We know everything.’
Al’bats: That is, the operation ‘Successor’ had already unfolded, the
scenario of a short victorious war?
Berezovsky: Absolutely.
Al’bats: Did the chekisty carry out the operation in Dagestan with the
permission of the Kremlin?
Berezovsky: They 100% received permission from the Kremlin.
Al’bats: Did Yeltsin know about it?
Berezovsky: He knew it 100%! Of course!

In my view, Berezovsky was here telling a portion of the truth about the
direct involvement of Russian siloviki in preparing the August incursion into
Dagestan but, as was his custom, he was also seeking to misinform his
interlocutor concerning his own weighty contribution to the operation.

Evgeniya Al’bats, “V noyabre 2000 goda Boris Berezovsky, togda odin iz samykh
vliyatel’nykh lyudei strany, govoril ‘Putin—eto tot chelovek pri kotorom ya ne mogu zhit’,”
newtimes.ru, 17 August 2009.

Akhmed Zakaev on the Key Role of Isa Umarov

In a 2009 interview, a Chechen journalist, Musa Muradov, who writes for the
newspaper Kommersant, asked former Chechen separatist foreign minister
Akhmed Zakaev, who was living in London, who had been the principal agent
of the FSB among the rebels that assaulted Dagestan in August 1999. Was it,
he asked, Movladi Udugov? “No,” Zakaev replied, “I think it is another
person—Isa Umarov, i.e., the older brother or step-brother, I don’t know
which, of Movladi Udugov. That Umarov, everyone knows, was the organizer
and inspirer of the assault on Dagestan in August 1999, after which the
second war began. Everyone knows that the assault was organized precisely
by him. But the strange thing is that not one Russian force structure or
special service has ever made any mention of Isa Umarov... Today he lives
peacefully in Istanbul.”

Voloshin’s Intervention—A Meeting in the South of France

On the day following the initial incursion of rebel forces into the Dagestani
highlands in early August of 1999, the investigative weekly Versiya published
a report claiming that the head of the Russian presidential administration,
Aleksandr Voloshin, had met secretly with the most wanted man in Russia,
Shamil’ Basaev, through the good offices of a retired officer in the GRU,
Anton Surikov, at a villa belonging to international arms merchant Adnan
Khashoggi located between Nice and Monaco.
A source in French
intelligence was credited by Versiya with supplying this information. The
article stirred major interest in the Russian media, but at the time
documentary confirmation was lacking.
By July of 2000, Versiya, in an effort of persistent journalistic digging, had
unearthed what it regarded as the full story of what had occurred, with an
acknowledged assist from French and Israeli intelligence. “The meeting [of
Voloshin and Basaev],” the weekly related, “which supposedly took place at the
dacha of the international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi in the small
town of Beaulieu near Nice, occurred on 4 July 1999. Sources in the French
special services had earlier communicated that information, in particular a
certain professor of political science, a specialist in issues of Russian defense,
security and organized crime. He is well known for his contract work for
French government establishments, including French counter-intelligence.”
The investigative weekly then went on to summarize what it had learned
from French and Israeli intelligence, as well as from its own journalistic
digging: “A luxurious villa in the French city of Beaulieu, located between
Nice and the principality of Monaco. This villa, according to the French special
services, belongs to the international arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. He is an

143 Musa Muradov, “Segodnya Moskva nakhoditsya pod Chechnei, Kommersant-Vlast’, no.
42, 26 October 2009.
Andrei Batumskii, “Sgovor,” Versiya, 3 August 1999.
Petr Pryanishnikov, “Voloshin i Basaev na lazurnom beregu: foto na pamyat’,” Versiya,
4 July 2000.
Arab from Saudi Arabia, a billionaire with a complicated reputation. According
to the French special services, and also to the French press, in June of 1999
there took up residence at the villa a Venezuelan banker named Alfonso
Davidovich. In the Latin American press, he is said to be responsible for
laundering the funds of the Columbian left insurrection organization FARC
(Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), which carries out an armed
struggle with the official authorities, supported by the narcotics business.”
“It soon emerged,” Versiya continued, “that a very frequent visitor to
Davidovich was a certain French businessman of Israeli-Soviet origin, a
native of Sukhumi [Abkhaziya], 53-year-old Yakov Kosman. Soon Kosman
brought with him six persons who arrived via Austria carrying Turkish
passports. In one of the passports the French [authorities] identified a
certain Tsveiba, who is accused by the Tbilisi authorities of having committed
genocide during the Georgia-Abkhaz conflict.” All of the visitors settled into
the villa for a three weeks’ stay.
“Soon,” the account continued, “the special services succeeded in
establishing that Kosman and Tsveiba went to the Nice airport, where they
met two men who had arrived from Paris. Judging from their documents, one
of those who arrived was Sultan Sosnaliev, who in the years of the Georgian-
Abkhaz war served as the minister of defense of Abkhaziya.
Second there
emerged from the airport one more native of Sukhumi—Anton Surikov.
According to rumors, during the years of the war in Abkhaziya, he was
subordinated to Sosnaliev and was responsible for questions of the
organization of sabotage and was friendly with field commander Shamil’
Basaev, who at that time headed the Chechen battalion.”
The next arrival came by sea: “According to the precise information of the
French and the Israelis, on 3 July at the port of Beaulieu a private English
yacht ‘Magiya’ [Magic] arrived from Malta. From it to the shore came two
passengers. If one is to believe the passport information, one of the
‘Englishmen’ was a certain Turk, in the past an advisor to the Islamicist
premier of Turkey, [Necmettin] Erbakan, a rather influential figure in the
wahhabi circles of Turkey, the Middle East and the Caucasus.
From sources
in the Russian special services we learned that Mekhmet is also a close friend
of the not unknown Khattab.”
“The second person,” the account went on, “to the surprise of the intelligence
officers, was the Chechen field commander Shamil’ Basaev. The French were
surprised and intensified their observation. And not in vain. On the fourth of
July, late in the evening, to the Nice Airport on a private plane belonging to
one of the Russian oil companies there arrived a man—balding and with a
small beard and a biting look who was externally similar to the head of the
Kremlin administration. He was in a conservative suit, carrying a briefcase
and without any guard. He was met by the same Abkhazians and by Surikov.
All of them sat in a Rolls Royce and sped off to the villa at Beaulieu.”

On Sosnaliev as Abkhaziya’s defense minister, see RFE-RL Newsline, 2 November
1993.
On Erbakan, see Shireen T. Hunter, Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and
Security (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), p. 365.
“All night long at the villa,” the recitation concluded, “something was taking
place. The watchfulness of the guard at the villa was elevated and a strong
magnetic ray spread out onto the territory around it so that mobile
telephones in a radius of several meters did not work. In the morning, the
same Rolls Royce sped to the airport, and the man similar to Voloshin flew to
Moscow. In a day’s time all of the villa’s residents had left... By accident or
not, but after a time, in August, there occurred the incursion of the band of
Shamil’ Basaev into Dagestan.”
Those who set up this meeting, journalist Boris Kagarlitskii, who has made a
study of this episode has noted, made one key mistake: “The security was so
thorough that people in the surroundings started to have problems with their
cellular phones. But the members of the meeting did not know about one of the
details of the security system. It blocked the hearing on the outside, but
it provided perfect hearing from the inside.”
French intelligence was able to
listen in on everything that transpired at the secret meeting.
It seems clear, to sum up, that an extremely complex secret operation had
been mounted on French soil in order to bring the two “principals,” Voloshin
and Basaev, together. The “Sukhumi” or “Abkhaz” connection was obviously
critical here. Many of the participants in the meeting (including Basaev and
Surikov) had been well acquainted and had fought on the same side during the
Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the early 1990’s.
“During the course of the Abkhaz war,” the weekly Profil’ reported in
November 2000, “Basaev carried out not a few tasks which, as they
maintained at the time in Tbilisi, were posed de facto by the Russian General
Staff... In Abkhaziya, almost not leaving there, was present the then deputy
minister of defense of Russia, Colonel General Georgii Kondrat’ev... [H]e
frequently visited the units of the Abkhaz army and the Chechen battalions.
Russian intelligence officers... admitted that they had occasion to carry out
‘joint work’ with the people of Basaev.”
A retired officer in the Russian
special forces maintains: “Shamil’ Basaev still during the time of the Abkhaz-
Georgian war had close contacts with the GRU. In any case, his battalion of
spetsnaz were prepared in heavy weaponry and military equipment by
officers of the 345
th paratroop regiment, then based in Abkhaziya, and in
tactics and mine-sabotage and other special disciplines by specialists of the
GRU. As is now understood, we know how to prepare people.”
In the early 1990’s, Anton Surikov, then a lieutenant colonel with the GRU,
using the pseudonym “Mansur,” commanded a detachment of special forces
in Abkhaziya. “I indeed met with Basaev more than once,” he told the web-
site Stringer, “I am certain that he did a great deal for the victory of
Abkhaziya in the post of deputy defense minister.”151 Journalist Boris

148 Boris Kagarlitskii, “S terroristami ne razgovarivaem. No pomogaem?” Novaya gazeta,
24 January 2000. English translation in JRL, no. 4083, 1 February 2000.
Vladimir Urban et al., “Glavnyi geroi. Vnimanie, snimayu,” Profil’, 27 November 2000.
Sergei Kozlov et al., Spetsnaz GRU (Moscow: Russkaya Panorama, 2000), pp. 554-
555.
Maksim Kalashnikov, “Chelovek, kotoryi verboval Basaeva,” Stringer-news.com, 10
July 2002. Stringer contends that it is likely that Basaev was officially recruited by the
Kagarlitskii has reported that Surikov traveled from Moscow to Paris on 23
June 1999 on an Aeroflot flight and returned back from Nice on 21 July, a
month later.152 Kagarlitskii also noted: “During Primakov’s time, Surikov
worked on the staff of the government of the Russian Federation. Despite
this fact, he also developed regular work relations with Voloshin’s people.” It
seems therefore quite likely that Surikov and Voloshin were personally
acquainted.
What did the two principals, Voloshin and Basaev, have to talk about?
“Voloshin,” Kagarlitskii writes, “was concerned about the situation in Russia
and the succession of power problem. Luzhkov seemed to be a threat, and
his alliance with Primakov was already a decided matter. They had to be
stopped, and there was only one way to stop them. The political situation
and the rules of the game had to be completely changed. In order to do this
a conflict with an external enemy was needed.” And what did Basaev want?
“Basaev,” Kagarlitskii continues, “was interested in power in Chechnya, not
Russia. With the regular development of events the influence of the legal
president, Maskhadov, was growing. A small war or crisis would change it...
But the real war had to remain small, otherwise Chechnya would need
something like a real and big army, and Maskhadov would be in charge of it.
In other words, a small war, a border conflict, a big performance with
fireworks... They generally agreed on the plan... Months after maneuvers,
marches and countermarches, attacks and special operations, both sides will
announce themselves as the winners. The Russians triumphantly get rid of
Chechens on their territory, and Chechens will not let the enemy in the
middle of Chechnya, and they will sign a declaration of peace. Basaev will be
rewarded for his merits.”