Warnings And Knowledge Of The Dagestan Incursion

Facilitating the Invasion

In the two years, and especially in the several months leading up to the
incursion of the Basaev-Khattab forces into Dagestan in early August of
1999, there occurred a number of warnings. In October of 1999, Nikolai
Kovalev, Putin’s predecessor as director of the FSB (he was removed from his
post in July 1998) recalled: “As for Dagestan, we [i.e., the FSB] repeatedly
wrote in our analytical reports to the president and the government
concerning the plans of the rebels, about how events would develop in
Dagestan. The scenario was known to us—the entry of an armed group into
one or another village, its seizure, then answering artillery fire and the use of
aviation [by the federal forces], and an attempt by the bandits to draw the
population... onto their side... In connection with the plans of the bandits,
appropriate instructions were given to the Ministry of Defense and the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is another question how those instructions were
carried out...”
“That the rebels would be coming into Dagestan,” the deputy minister of
internal affairs of Dagestan, Major General Magomed Omarov, recalled in
mid-2003, “was known by everyone several months before the events. That
there would be a war in August was spoken of as early as the spring [of
1999]—beginning with operational workers from the power structures and
ending with women at the bazaars.” “The information, naturally, was passed
on to the center,” he remembered, “but why the necessary reaction did not
take place is a question not to be addressed to me.”
Omarov also noted that “three months [before the incursions] the troops
were withdrawn from the Dagestan-Chechen border, troops which had stood
there for a long time.” “There are many other questions,” Omarov added,
“the main one of which is: why were the rebels let in without hindrance and
why were they allowed to leave freely.” Retired army colonel Viktor Baranets
reported in September 1999 that, “The administration of the FSB of Dagestan
had over the course of the past three years more than 2,000 times informed
Moscow about the growing activity of Chechen emissaries in the republic.”
This information has been confirmed by a number of other sources:
“Operational information came to the FSB, the MVD, and to the government
of the republic as early as February 1999,” one press report affirmed,

frequently visited Chechnya during this period and was acquainted with a number of
leading separatists, has written that he can confirm that Berezovsky did indeed speak by
telephone with both Basaev and Movladi Udugov at this juncture. See Andrei Babitskii,
“Na voine,” hro.org, 2 March 2004.
Elena Nikolaeva, “Nikolai Kovalev: Rabotayu tol’ko na gosudarstvo,” MK.ru, 2 October
1999.
Bakhtiyar Akhmedkhanov, “Voina po obe storony gora,” Vremyamn.ru, 1 August 2003.
Viktor Baranets, “Udar,” Komsomol’skaya pravda, 24 September 1999, pp. 4-5.

“Alarming reports were sent to Moscow, but no measures were taken. Still in
July 1999 in Botlikh [in the Dagestani highlands] the local police were
confused as to why they were removing units of a brigade of internal troops
of the MVD of Russia based in Dagestan.”157 This central question was also of
keen interest to Colonel General Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov, commander of the
MVD internal troops of Russia: “[A]lready after the attack on Tsumadinskii
District [in August 1999],” he has recalled, “I reported the situation to [MVD
chairman Rushailo] and reminded him: “Remember what we spoke about?
Why did they remove a battalion of the Ministry of Internal Affairs from
Botlikh? If it had been there, no-one would have attacked either
Tsumadinskii or Botlikhskii District.”
Retired colonel Baranets, citing the text of a “confidential document,” reports
that, on 5-6 June 1999, control over a section of the border 14 kilometers
long in Tsumadinskii District was transferred form the Russian Border-
guards, an elite unit, to the Tsumadinskii branch of the regular MVD of
Dagestan. “And to the incursion,” he stressed, “there remained precisely
sixty days.”
The authors of the volume Spetsnaz GRU have recalled: “The incursion of
Basaev and Khattab was observed by intelligence officers of the special
forces carrying out a task in that district. However the leadership, having
received this information from its intelligence organ, ordered them not to
enter into battle and not to hinder the movement of the rebels...”160 Florian
Hassel, Moscow correspondent for the Frankfurter Rundschau, has reported
meeting, in October 1999, five Dagestani policemen who had briefly fought
Basaev’s troops in the mountains. “‘Basaev’s attack on Dagestan was
apparently organized in Moscow,’ said one policeman, Elgar, who watched
the Chechens retreat from the village of Botlikh on September 11. ‘Basaev
and his people went back comfortably in broad daylight with about 100 cars
and trucks and many on foot. They used the main road to Chechnya, and
were not fired at by our combat helicopters. We received express orders not
to attack.’”
This version of events was also confirmed to journalist
Bakhtiyar Akhmedkhanov by a number of eyewitnesses living in the Avar
Dagestani highlands.162
The commander of a Russian special operations team in Dagestan told a
correspondent for Time magazine that on one scorching August day in 1999,
“he had Chechen warlord Shamil’ Basaev in his sights... With a simple
squeeze of his finger, [he] could take out Basaev... But [he] says that he
received the following order over his walkie-talkie: ‘Hold your fire.’” “‘We just
watched Basaev’s long column of trucks and jeeps withdraw from Dagestan
back to Chechnya under cover provided by our own helicopters,’” the Russian

157 Fatima Alieva, “Basaevskii plan zakhvata Dagestana,” Utro.ru, 15 November 2002.
Boris Karpov, Vnutrennie voiska: Kavkazskii krest—2 (Moscow: “Delovoi ekspress,”
2000), p. 47.
Viktor Baranets, “Udar,” Komsomol’skaya pravda, 24 September 1999, pp. 4-5.
Kozlov et al., Spetsnaz GRU, p. 556.
Robin Munro, “Book Sees Kremlin’s Hand in Second Chechen War,” The Moscow
Times, 18 September 2003, p. 3.
Vremyamn.ru, 1 August 2003.

officer recalled. “‘We could have wiped him out then and there, but the
bosses in Moscow wanted him alive.’”163

Exploding Karachaevo-Cherkesiya

One might have thought that exploding Dagestan, destabilizing North
Osetiya, and massively ratcheting up tensions with separatist Chechnya
would have been sufficient for the militant “hawks” of the Yeltsin Family and
their allies in the power ministries. But, as a kind of insurance policy, it was
apparently also decided to shake up yet another North Caucasus republic,
Karachaevo-Cherkesiya. Berezovsky seems to have helped pave the way; he
announced in July of 1999 that he intended to run for a seat in the December
Duma elections. He stressed at the time that this would provide him with
immunity from prosecution.
Soon Berezovsky settled on running for seat
from Karachaevo-Cherkesiya, a region in which he had apparently become
something of a specialist. This occurred just as the republic was in process of
being massively destabilized.
As journalist Aleksandr Khinshtein has observed: “Until the middle of last
year, little Karachaevo-Cherkesiya was a model of peace and stability in the
Caucasus... However in 1999 it nevertheless became necessary to hold
[presidential] elections... Into the second round of elections there entered
two: a major vodka business man, the mayor of Cherkessk, Derev, and the
retired head of [Russian] ground troops, the half-Russian, half-Karachai
Vladimir Semenov. And although Semenov gained a convincing victory (more
than 55%) his opponents did not accept it... The local election commission
did not accept the results of the election. Semenov had to appeal to the
Supreme Court... Only a miracle at that time saved Karachaevo-Cherkesiya
from a civil war. In a relatively short period of time a wave of terrorist acts
struck the republic. The homes of Semenov’s activists were burned down. An
attempt was organized on the life of the general himself... The Supreme
Court of Russia recognized Vladimir Semenov as the head of Karachaevo-
Cherkesiya. Semenov took up his duties. True, at a steep cost. In exchange
for Semenov they had to make Berezovsky a deputy of the State Duma...
More and more often in the Karachaevo-Cherkess republic this version is
heard: Berezovsky wants the republic to be turned into a hotbed of
destabilization so that he can each time show his necessity.”
The small republic of Karachaevo-Cherkesiya came even more under public
scrutiny when it was announced that the individuals responsible for the terror
bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999 had been ethnic
Karachai. “Today,” one commentator wrote, “we are trying to understand:
why are all the accused in the terrible terrorist acts residents of Karachaevo-
Cherkesiya, although the official version of the special services... has been

163 Yuri Zarakhovich, “Profits of Doom,” Time Europe, 6 October 2003.
Monitor, 13 July 1999.
Aleksandr Khinshtein, “V posteli s Berezovskim: Kuda vedet Karachaevo-Cherkesiyu
ee deputat,” Moskovskii komsomolets, 5 May 2000. For a detailed account of the charged
developments in Karachaevo-Cherkesiya, see Yurii Kochergin and Leonid Krutakov,
“Operatsiya ‘vzorvanyi mir,’” MK.ru, 24 September 1999.

that it was the hand of Chechen terrorists?”166 Another journalist pointed out
in early 2000 that bombings in North Osetiya could likewise have been the
work of Karachai terrorists: “On 17 June [1999] three apartment houses
were blown up in a military city in Vladikavkaz. Chechens were suspected of
organizing the blasts. But in the Karachaevo-Cherkesiya Republic they do not
exclude that it was the work of their own ‘eagles’.”

Vladimir Putin Is Named Acting Prime Minister

Boris Yeltsin has recalled in his memoirs: “On August 4 [1999], I met with
Voloshin. I wanted to ask him when we would finally resolve the issue of
appointing a new prime minister... There was one essential issue: Stepashin
could not be a political leader in the parliamentary and presidential
elections... Putin was the man of my hopes. He was the man I trusted, to
whom I could entrust the country.”168
On the following morning, Yeltsin continues, “I met with Putin. I explained the
state of affairs. A fierce battle loomed ahead. There was an election
campaign. It would not be easy to keep the entire country under control. The
northern Caucasus was very troubled. Some political provocations were
possible in Moscow... ‘I’ve made a decision, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and I
would like to offer you the post of prime minister,’ I told Putin.”
“‘I will work wherever you assign me,’ Putin replied with military terseness.
‘And in the very highest post?’ Putin hesitated. I sensed for the first time he
truly realized what the conversation was about. ‘I had not thought about
that. I don’t know if I am prepared for that,’ said Putin.”170 (Of course, since
Putin was already at this time aware that he had been provisionally chosen
by the Family as Yeltsin’s successor, the actual conversation that occurred
between Yeltsin and him would presumably have proceeded somewhat
differently.)
Over the weekend, Yeltsin remembered, Stepashin’s patron, Anatolii Chubais,
made a last-ditch effort to derail the appointment: “It was only later I
learned that Chubais had attacked the administration and especially Putin.
Apparently, he believed that I was making a decision that would lead to
disastrous consequences. First Chubais met with Putin and warned him that
terrible blows were awaiting him in public politics... Putin told Chubais that
he was sorry but that was the president’s decision. On Sunday... he
[Chubais] proposed that the inner circle meet with him: Voloshin, Yumashev,
and Tan’ya.”
Chubais later admitted that he did in fact go all out to stop the
appointment: “I considered,” he said in an interview, “that Stepashin the

166 Orkhan Dzhemal’, “Geksogenovyi sled—3,” Novaya gazeta, 13 January 2003. See also
“Prestupleniya s ‘chechenskim sledom’ chasto vedut v Karachaevo-Cherkesiyu,”
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 17 December 2002.
Dmitrii Nikol’skii, “Vzryvy v Moskve,” Sovershenno sekretno, no. 4, April 2000, pp. 12-
13.
Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, p. 329.
Ibid., pp. 329-330.
Ibid., pp. 330-331.
Ibid., p. 332.

candidate had greater chances [to be elected] than did Putin the candidate. I
fought for my point of view to the end. Right up until that moment [on 9
August] when Yeltsin informed Stepashin of his removal.”172

On the day that he announced Putin’s appointment as acting premier, Yeltsin
also suggested strongly that he saw Putin as his political successor: “I am
certain of him,” Yeltsin said. “But I want everyone who will come to the
precincts in July of 2000 to cast their vote to be just as sure. I think that he
has enough time to manifest himself.”173 On the same day, Putin, acting on
El’ltin’s orders, chaired a meeting of the Security Council.174 In his memoirs,
Yeltsin writes: “Putin turned to me and requested absolute power to conduct
the needed military operation and coordinate all power structures. I
supported him without hesitation.”175 In his so-called autobiography, Putin
conceded that he had “to a large degree” taken responsibility for the entire
war effort.176
On 16 August 1999, Putin was narrowly confirmed by the State Duma as
chairman of the government of the Russian Federation. There were 233 votes
‘for’ and 84 ‘against’ with 17 abstentions. A total of 226 votes ‘for’ had been
needed for confirmation. If Putin had not passed this vote, then Emergency
Rule could have been introduced. The Putin era had begun.

Telen’, Pokolenie Putina, p. 53.
Aleksei A. Mukhin, “Osobaya papka” Vladimira Putina (Moscow: Tsentr politicheksoi
informatsii, 2004), p. 77.
Valentina Korchagina, “Russia Attacks Rebel Forces,” St. Petersburg Times, 10 August
1999.
Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries, p. 336.
First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin