Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Sergei Adamovich, there was an episode in the Duma when Speaker Seleznyov announced a 'minute of silence' in memory of the victims of the explosion in Volgodonsk, but the house on Kashirskoye Highway had blown up.

Sergei Kovalev: There hadn't been an explosion yet; the explosion hadn't been officially announced.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: It only happened three days later, and on that day there was an explosion on Kashirskoye Highway.

Sergei Kovalev: It must be said that Zhirinovsky caught him on this. Well, they somehow hushed it up.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: But this is a very serious circumstance.

Sergei Kovalev: It was a very serious blunder. It means that Seleznyov knew what would happen...

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Or his press service mixed up the telegrams of condolence.

Sergei Kovalev: As for Ryazan. Ryazan was, in a sense, a very fertile object for investigation. I already said that the policeman refused to answer the question of what was in the bags. And then there were a series of strange incidents. First, we later spoke with Major General Sergeyev. Major General Sergeyev, at the time when the Ryazan events with building number 16 occurred, was the head of the FSB for the Ryazan region. When we spoke with him, he already held another position. And there was such an episode. The first official reports from Ryazan were that an explosive mixture had been found in the bags. And then they reported that, no, they were bags of sugar, that it was an exercise. So, at the time when the explosive mixture was reported, the invited explosives expert clearly said—hexogen. And subsequently, General Sergeyev explained to us that this explosives expert had recently returned from Chechnya, and he used a device that was contaminated with explosives. And what could have been contaminated there?! It's just a metal plate on which the material under study is placed. And then the composition is determined by not very complex devices. So, he allegedly didn't wash the plate he brought from Chechnya.

Second, the Ryazan FSB department, of course, was not initiated into anything. They believed that an explosion had been prevented. And they were looking for who could have been in that car. So, they found three people—two men and a woman who were staying in a hotel—and were ready to arrest them. And the following episode occurred. The telephone operator, who connected phone numbers upon request, frightened by this whole situation, listened a bit to the Ryazan-Moscow conversations. And she heard how these three received someone's instructions to get out of Ryazan without leaving a trace. So, General Sergeyev, with whom we spoke, explained: 'We thought they were saboteurs, and then it turned out they were the people who organized the exercise.' Talking to Sergeyev, I said to him: 'The residents of the building saw that it wasn't sugar pouring out of those bags, but some strange grayish dust.' He said: 'You Muscovites are used to buying clean sugar. But you should see what we have in Ryazan...' And there were quite a few such incoherencies.

And the most interesting thing is that we never found the explosives expert who conducted the examination. He was always on a business trip or on vacation. We couldn't contact him. We couldn't ask him why he concluded it was an explosive mixture and then recanted. General Sergeyev explained this by the 'Caucasian' contamination of the plate on which the sample was placed. And we never found the explosives expert. There was another episode. These bags were taken somewhere to a military unit. And a soldier guarding the basement where these bags were located scooped out a little of the so-called 'sugar' to drink tea. And he was convinced that it wasn't sugar, that it was something else. And there were plenty of such blunders.

And the biggest blunder, in my opinion, was the following. When the exercise version arose, the deputy part of our commission was presented with a secret document—the names of the FSB officers who were supposed to conduct this exercise were listed there. We were told that this was secret information, that we shouldn't mention names. And you know that FSB officers are like Arab sheikhs; they have a hundred names. So, in the official protocol presented to the deputies involved in this investigation, a certain device was named with the help of which the study was conducted. And in the official report preceding this, a completely different device was named. We asked: 'What's the matter? Which device was used for the examination?' They explained to us: 'We reported that the material was being examined by a more advanced device, but in fact we didn't have it then; we used another one. And this less advanced device showed that there were allegedly traces of an explosive substance. And a more advanced device subsequently showed that this was not the case.' And this error, and the refusal of the senior police lieutenant to report what he saw in the bags—this is very characteristic. In fact, I think sugar was also present there. This is a fairly common thing. There were aluminum shavings, probably some amount of sugar, and well, explosive substances.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: As I understand it, sugar does not interfere with an explosion.

Sergei Kovalev: It even helps.