Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Valentin Gefter has joined us. Valentin Mikhailovich, did you immediately believe in the 'Chechen trace' of the apartment bombings in Russia in '99?

Valentin Gefter: Before talking about 'traces,' it might be worth explaining to the new generation (after all, 18 years have passed, people have grown up who simply weren't there then, or were just born) if not the situation of August-September '99, because that's a long story that would take us far afield, then at least why Sergei Adamovich says 'we,' what is being discussed, and who 'we' are. Following the explosions (or their imitation) in three Russian cities, a semi-formal parliamentary investigative group was created, headed by Sergei Adamovich and Sergei Yushenkov. It was supported then by various public structures, for example, Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, as I understand it.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: And Yuri Shchekochikhin was a member of it.

Sergei Kovalev: Yes, there were several State Duma deputies. And we, as public and official assistants to Sergei Adamovich in the Duma, also helped them in this work. And a certain 'division of labor' occurred spontaneously. Some dealt with what happened in Moscow, and in connection with that, in Volgodonsk, since these are overlapping events in terms of people. And Sergei Adamovich and others, including Lev Levinson, our friend and colleague, dealt more with the Ryazan matters. Lev also worked actively on Moscow.

After all, how do these two, let's say, pieces of events differ? The Ryazan one is entirely either a provocation or a rehearsal, according to the results of public investigations and how the security agencies positioned them. No people from our security agencies, specifically, let alone from the North Caucasus, were discovered by anyone. But along the Moscow and Volgodonsk lines, let's say, there was even an international investigation. But most importantly, people were brought in; there was a criminal trial. And two perpetrators are serving life sentences—Krymsamkhalov and Dekkushev. And now it would be very interesting, after so many years, to return to these two people in their respective colonies, if they are alive and well. And to reconstruct, with their help, perhaps the missing elements of the picture. But both men are not Karachay-Cherkess people; they have no direct connection to Chechnya. They were not directly incriminated with a connection to the leadership of the Chechen Republic at that time, as far as I remember. It was about them as perpetrators. The leader of this group was Gochiyaev, who is originally from the vicinity of Karachaevsk.

And there was a story about how they formed their terrorist cell, what they did, where they were sponsored from, what happened in the summer, until the last days of August and the beginning of September, with the transportation of materials for the explosions both to Volgodonsk, in which these two people directly participated, and allegedly to Moscow, but here their direct participation in organizing the explosions, as far as I remember, was not proven; they only loaded or perhaps transported them. Actually, they were not incriminated with blowing up the houses on Guryanov Street and Kashirka. There was a picture, I would say, of a 'North Caucasian trace.'