The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk between 4 and 16 September 1999, killing 293 people and injuring more than 1,000, spreading a wave of fear across the country. To date, no one has taken credit for the bombings; the Russian government blamed Chechen militants, although they, along with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, denied responsibility. The bombings, together with the Dagestan War, led the country into the Second Chechen War. Then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's handling of the crisis boosted his popularity and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.On 22 September, an explosive device similar to those used in the bombings was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan. The next day, Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, marking the beginning of the Second Chechen War. Thirty-six hours later, local police arrested the perpetrators, who were discovered to in fact be three FSB agents. The Russian government declared that the incident had simply been a training exercise, and the agents were released on Moscow’s orders.Parliament member Yuri Shchekochikhin filed two motions for a parliamentary investigation, but the motions were rejected by the Russian Duma in March 2000. An independent public commission to investigate the bombings was chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev, but the commission was rendered ineffective due to the Russian government's refusal to respond to its inquiries. The official Russian investigation of the bombings was completed in 2002 and concluded that all the bombings were organised and led by Achemez Gochiyayev, who remains at large, and ordered by Islamist warlords Ibn Al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif, who have been killed. Five other suspects have been killed and six have been convicted by Russian courts on terrorism-related charges. A number of historians and observers have stated that the bombings were a false flag attempt, coordinated by Russian state security services to bring Putin into the presidency. Those who hold this view point to a number of pieces of evidence, including the Ryazan incident, the fact that the Volgodonsk bombing was erroneously announced three days before it happened by Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov, and the fact that supposed prime suspect Achemez Gochiyayev told police that he was being set up by the FSB, and notified police about two still-unexploded bombs, which they were able to find and deactivate in time. Also notable are the untimely deaths of various observers who called the official story into question: Kovalev Commission members Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin , and former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who blamed the FSB for the bombings in two books, and was poisoned by FSB agents in London in 2006. Additionally, the Commission's lawyer and investigator, Mikhail Trepashkin, was arrested and served four years in prison for revealing state secrets.
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