INSTEAD OF A COMMENT

Upon reading, there are more questions than answers. Well, at least, isn't the document too well-composed for such young and poorly educated people?
But for now, we will not draw any conclusions, because we consider it necessary to look into all the accompanying details and nuances.
And for that, we decided to meet with historian Yuri Felshtinsky, who is conducting his own investigation into the circumstances of the terrorist attacks in Russia. It was to him that these confessions came. How did they get there? How did he manage to reach people who are wanted and hiding outside of Russia? What prompted Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev to make such a statement, and why is there a clear sense of something left unsaid in it?

We declare that neither Khattab, nor Basayev, nor any of the Chechen field commanders and political leaders, nor any Chechens at all had anything to do with the September 1999 terrorist attacks. They did not order, finance, or organize these attacks.
1. We first met Khattab and some field commanders only after we fled to Chechnya from persecution by Russian law enforcement agencies after the attacks.
2. We are accomplices in the terrorist attacks at the lowest executive level, and we have no connection to the explosions themselves. We were only involved in the transportation of bags, which we believed contained explosives for temporary storage and subsequent use for blowing up administrative buildings of the special services and the military, not residential buildings.
We did not anticipate that the explosions would occur at the storage sites of the bags, in the basements of residential buildings. The time of the terrorist attacks was not known to us.
Having learned about these explosions, we fled to Chechnya.

The [customer/contractor] of the bombing operation in Russia in September 1999 is the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. In this regard, the name of FSB Director Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev has been mentioned repeatedly.
The curator of the entire bombing program was German Ugryumov, who was later liquidated, according to our information, by the FSB itself. The total number of group members was, according to our information, more than thirty people. As middle-level managers, we know only two:
1. a lieutenant colonel, a Tatar by nationality, nickname (pseudonym) Abu-Bakar;
2. a colonel, Russian by nationality, pseudonym Adygeets — the Russian and well-known employee of the special services and special units Max Lazovsky is the same person.
4. We became part of the tragedy of the Chechen and Russian peoples. We ask for forgiveness from those to whom we brought grief in September 1999. We also ask for forgiveness from the Chechen people for being used 'blindly' by the FSB to start the second Chechen war. We do not ask for leniency and will devote the rest of our lives to the struggle for the independence of the Chechen people.

Krymshamkhalov Yusuf Ibragimovich, Karachay, born November 16, 1966. [signature]
Batchaev Timur Amurovich, Karachay, born June 27, 1978. [signature]
July 28, 2002.

TERRORISTS DEMANDED $3,000,000 FOR THEIR TESTIMONY

Historian Yuri Felshtinsky — on the private investigation of the terrorist attacks in Moscow, Volgodonsk, and Buynaksk

— Krymshamkhalov and Batchaev in their testimony refer to three people involved, in their opinion, in the terrorist acts — the apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk: Lazovsky, Ugryumov, and Patrushev. I want to ask first about the first two. Doesn't it seem strange to you that they refer only to the deceased? Ugryumov, according to the official version, died of a heart attack at the Grozny airport, where his office was located. Lazovsky was killed near the church that was located near his dacha in the Moscow region...
— Of course, it doesn't seem strange to me. I'll explain why. Regarding Lazovsky, it's not 100 percent clear that it's him. A serious identification from photographs must be carried out. However, there is a high probability that it is him. I think the whole logic of events suggests that it should be him. Because Lazovsky is a serious special services employee, involved, one hundred percent, in a whole series of terrorist attacks that took place before that in Moscow.
I personally cannot assume that this person was not involved in the operations in 1999. In the interview with Galkin published by you (by the way, this story also requires its own comments) — in the second interview — there is one interesting phrase: 'But it seems to me that there are no coincidences in life.' I also don't believe in such coincidences: they couldn't have accidentally killed Max Lazovsky in the area where he lives, in a not very prestigious area, by the way. Let me remind you that Lazovsky was killed on April 28, 2000, on the threshold of the Assumption Cathedral in his village, shortly after the Prosecutor General's Office agreed to his arrest. We describe this episode in more detail in our book with A. Litvinenko, 'FSB Blows Up Russia.' There is also a version that a double of Lazovsky was killed, and Lazovsky himself is alive to this day. At least three FSB officers told me about this.
Regarding Ugryumov, there was information immediately after his death that his death was not accidental, that he did not die of a heart attack, that a courier came to him, handing him a package, or maybe a suggestion — to shoot himself.
This information was published for the first time (at least, I saw it there for the first time) on Korzhakov's 'Stringer' website. That is, this information was, it seems to me, from a serious source.
— Do you really consider Korzhakov a serious source?
— I believe that Korzhakov certainly has a connection to people who have information. I can give one example. Back in 1999, one person who was among those invited to Korzhakov's birthday told me that a decision had been made to 'squeeze' Berezovsky, Gusinsky, Dorenko, and Kiselev out of Russia. As you can see, the information turned out to be reliable. Only Kiselev was not 'squeezed out' completely. People have a habit of gossiping. I have a habit of listening.
— But you are a serious person, a serious researcher. Do you think that the practice of films like 'Schizophrenia' really persists, when someone at a distance or even through a lever gives people an order to shoot himself? Do you seriously think that a former FSB general...

1. Shadow businessman.
2. Deputy Director of the FSB, general, responsible 'for Chechnya'. Colleagues considered him one of the most professional and principled leaders of the special service.
3. Director of the FSB of the Russian Federation.
4. Explosion in a bus at VDNKh, bridge at Yauza station (see materials of 'Novaya Gazeta' in No. 15, 23 for 2002).
5. Galkin — a GRU officer who gave testimony about [involvement?] of special services in known [terrorist attacks?]
   No. 89 'Novaya Gazeta'