Helena Merriman

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?

In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed. Hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?

In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed.

But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it.

It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.

I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.

What did they miss the first time?

The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Available now on the documentary from the BBC World Service.

Listen now by searching for the documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Kiitos kun katsoit videon!

As a journalist, as much as I love looking at what's going on right now in the present, I think I've always been drawn to stories in the past where the dust hasn't quite settled. And I think the story of the apartment bombs is probably one of the most intriguing examples of that. In fact, I'd say it's probably one of the most important unresolved stories of recent history. So it's about four bombs that blew up four apartments in September 1999.

killing hundreds of people while they slept. What's interesting about this story is that even now there are these huge disagreements about who bombed those four apartments. So the government blamed Chechen militants, but others blamed the FSB, which is Russia's internal security service, partly because of very strange murky things that went on at the time, which I'm sure we'll get into.

But it's also a story that tells us so much about one of the most powerful men in the world today, Vladimir Putin, because he becomes president right at the time of the bombs. So if you want to understand Putin's origin story, this is a really important place to start.

Many listeners might not know this story at all. Can you take us back to the beginning? Where does it all begin? It all begins in September 1999. Maybe it's helpful to give a bit of political context at the time. This is eight years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. You have this new country, Russia, with a new president, Boris Yeltsin. At first everyone loved him. He was flamboyant, he was charismatic.

But by 1999 he's old, he's an alcoholic, inflation has gone through the roof, people's savings are wiped, there's vast amounts of corruption. And Yeltsin and the oligarchs around him know that he needs a successor. But the problem is there's no one obvious. So that sets the scene for what then happens on September the 4th.

This is a remote town which is thousands of miles from Moscow. People are bedding down for the night when a truck which is parked outside the apartment explodes. Southern Russia is in turmoil tonight. Crumbles to the ground, 64 people killed. Rescue workers have spent the day searching for survivors in this mound of rubble.

Se on kaikki, mikä on jäljellä. Se on kaikki, mikä on jäljellä. Se on jäljellä.