'Capable of anything': How the '99 apartment bombings explain Putin's rise and regime

[dalton99a]

https://news.yahoo.com/putin-1999-apartment-bombings-ukraine-175001959.html

'Capable of anything': How the '99 apartment bombings explain Putin's rise and regime
Alexander Nazaryan · Senior White House Correspondent
Sun, March 6, 2022, 11:50 AM

WASHINGTON — The first apartment building to come down was in Buynaksk, a Russian garrison town on the border with the breakaway republic of Chechnya, where Islamic insurgents had fought the Kremlin to a standstill in a brutal, two-year war. They were thought to be responsible for the Buynaksk bomb, which had been placed inside a car and ripped through a building housing Russian border guards on Sept. 4, 1999. Sixty-four people died.

Five days later, a bomb was detonated in the basement of an apartment building in the working-class Moscow district of Pechatniki, killing 106. “It’s like hell underneath,” a first responder would say of looking for survivors in the rubble. Four days after that, in another Moscow neighborhood, a car bomb took 119 lives.

A final bomb went off in Volgodonsk, a southern city. There, 17 died.

In all, more than 300 people died in the apartment bombings, a tragedy that many believe changed the course of Russia, putting it on a trajectory toward authoritarianism and aggression, both of which have been in the spotlight of the world stage as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now enters its second week.

At the time of the bombings, the country’s new prime minister was a former intelligence agent who had been utterly unknown to most Russians. The prime minister vowed to find the Chechen insurgents he said had doubtlessly committed the bombings, which sowed terror across the land.


Rescuers and firefighters work at the site of a massive explosion that destroyed a nine-story apartment building in the southeastern part of Moscow in September 1999.

[SunSeeker]

1. Yup, he blew up hundreds of Russians, blamed it on the Chechens, and vowed revenge on Chechnya.

Then used the ensuing Chechnya military operation to delay the elections so he could really spread propaganda. That is how he originally got elected to the presidency of Russia.


Here is an excellent, albeit chilling, Frontine piece on that.

[dalton99a]

2. +1

[SunSeeker]

3. Then he killed off those investigating the bombings, as discussed in the Frontline video.

He is so fucking evil.

[regnaD kciN]

4. Boys and girls, can you say "Reichstag Fire"...?

Sure, you can!

[XiJung]

5. Putin will be 70 this year

I don't think age has mellowed him and I believe he could be in power until 2035.

[2naSalit]

6. K&R