TWT #256 –

On September 13th, 1999, the Russian government bombed Moscow in order to blame Chechen’s, justify war with Chechnya, and install Putin as Russian President.

This is one long, convoluted, and contested story folks…so I’ll give you a quick breakdown.

In the back half of ’99, 5 bombs were set off in cities across Russia, targeting civilian apartment buildings.

The aftermath of one of the bombs.

The fourth bomb detonated on September 13th in Moscow, collapsing a building and killing 119 civilians.

So why is there suspicion that the Russian government had something to do about the these attacks?

Well, on September 13th, the day the bomb went off in Moscow, a Russian higher-up named Seleznyov gave a speech noting that a bomb went off…in the city of Volgodonsk.

Maybe that was just a mistake, right? Maybe he simply misspoke and got the city wrong?

That was an acceptable theory…until three days later when a bomb DID go off in Volgodonsk. So Seleznyov somehow was given the wrong speech and was able to predict that bombing with suspicious accuracy.

Remember, Russia (most likely) did this to their own people

And so immediately, Russia blamed Chechnyan rebels. A few days later, after another bomb was stopped from detonating in the Russian city of Ryazan, Putin called for air bombs to be dropped on the Chechen capital Grozny.

A lot of other stuff happened after these bombings. Russia essentially used these incidents to enter a 9-year war with Chechnya that resulted in thousands of deaths and the loss of Chechen independence.

Oh yeah, do you remember Alexander Litvinenko? The Russian secret service defector who went into exile in England and was poisoned back in 2006?

Well he was poisoned for writing a book all about how Putin orchestrated these attacks in order to get himself into power. (The book is called “Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within” FYI).

Crazy stuff!

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