Asma Khalid

But listen, it's great.

I'm so glad we've got the opportunity to do this and I hope other families get to do it as well because you can see how great it is.

Nyt on meidän vuoro, Matti.

Täällä mulla on 15.

Mä ottaisin puoli kiloa merilohta.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hei kulta, koska sä oot viimeksi käynyt labrassa? Siitä on kyllä aikaa. Sit ois kyllä korkea aika tsekata arvot. Niin, mut se oli viimeksi niin hankalaa ja kallista. Oli, mut ei oo enää. Arvoterveydessä kuvantamistutkimukset aina erikoislääkärin lausunnolla ja laboratoriotutkimukset viitearvoilla. Markkinoiden parhaaseen hintaan myös ilman lähetettä.

Varaa aika heti. Nyt tutkimukset ilman rahastusta. Arvoterveys.fi Hey there, I'm Asma Khalid.

I'm Tristan Redman and we're here with a bonus episode for you from the Global Story podcast. The world order is shifting. Old alliances are fraying and new ones are emerging. Some of this turbulence can be traced to decisions made in the United States. But the US isn't just a cause of the upheaval. Its politics are also a symptom of it. Every day we focus on one story, looking at how America and the world shape each other.

So we hope you enjoy this episode and to find more of our show, just search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts. When you're trying to make sense of the world in this moment, one person central to it all is Vladimir Putin. And although here on this show we have looked at Putin's backstory and how it informs Russia today, there remains a pivotal series of events during his rise to power that is still shrouded in confusion and controversy.

September 1999, juuri viikkoja myöhemmin, kun Putin tuli suomalaiskäräjälle, neljä bombaamia rikkoivat neljä asuntoalueen ympäri Ranskia. Bombaamit jätettiin kesällä iltapäivänä, tappamalla useita ihmisiä, kun he nukkivat. Bombaamien jälkeen monia erityistä asioita tapahtui, ja se liittyi moniin erilaisiin teoreisiin siitä, kuka olisi ollut takana niistä.

Venäjän hallitukset vaikuttivat militantteihin Chechnyaan, raskaisessa alueessa Venäjällä. Mutta jotkut sanoivat, että bombeerit olivat FSBin työtä, Venäjän turvallisuusjärjestöjen työtä.

There's a theory that Vladimir Putin himself had a hand in them, although the FSB and President Putin have always denied this. Putin has called the suggestion utter nonsense and totally insane. What isn't in dispute is that the atmosphere of terror that followed the bombings was part of Putin's case for launching a war in Chechnya that set the stage for his rise to the presidency.

A new BBC podcast tells the story of the apartment bombings in detail and tries to get close to the truth behind this 26-year-old mystery. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. and today on The Global Story, how the 1999 apartment bombings helped propel Putin's rise to power.

Helena is the host of the new BBC podcast I mentioned. It's called The History Bureau, Putin and the Apartment Bombs. I started out by asking Helena why she wanted to tell this particular story.

Is that just because of the war that it was considered to be so brutal and somewhat unfinished that people thought it might be related to this? Or was there actual evidence on the ground at that point pointing to the Chechens? At that time there was no evidence pointing to Chechen militants, but then just a few days later you have a third bomb. Yesterday's deadly explosion has triggered a massive security clamp down here.

One small detail you mentioned in this series that caught my attention is that there was an attempt to publicize this story beyond Russia. You spoke to a journalist who actually tries to get this story out into a newspaper at the time, note here, as the Washington Times. And I was struck by the fact that it doesn't seem to resonate. Exactly. What happened and why was that? Yeah, it's a really good question because...

And yet this question of who was involved or who was responsible for these apartment bombings, is that ever resolved? Yeah, so what you then have is a number of very brave Russian journalists, parliamentarians who are desperate to get to the truth.

To sum up the story that you have given us, we have several people who strongly believe the FSB, Russian Intelligence Security Services, somehow were involved in those apartment bombings. And they seem to believe that Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, had a lot to gain from them because they accelerated his rise to power. Some of those people are now dead under mysterious circumstances.

One thing that was on my mind as I was listening to your series, as I listen to you speak now about this story, is what this mystery tells us about Putin's Russia 25 years on. I think what this story tells us is just how much the Russia we see today was forged in that moment back in 1999. So when you look at Russia now,

Thank you so much, Helena, for bringing your reporting to us. Thank you. That was Helena Merriman and her series is called The History Bureau, Putin and the Apartment Bombs. You can find it wherever you get podcasts. And I should add that there is a lot more to this story than we had the time to get into here. So if you're interested, check it out.