Helena Merriman

They then find two men who look just like people who eyewitnesses saw.

But the men then say, we're FSB, and they get out their ID cards to prove it.

So none of this is making sense until two days later, there's an announcement given by the government.

Russia's interior minister is speaking to the police.

And he mentions what happens in Ryazan as a successful example of people finding and stopping what could have been a bomb.

So he says, you know, well done, you were vigilant, your vigilance paid off.

But then, and again, this is another very strange part of the story, there's a 30-minute gap, and half an hour after that speech, the head of the FSB, a man called Nikolai Patrushev,

He says something that completely contradicts what the interior minister said.

It wasn't a thwarted terrorist attack.

It was a training exercise.

It was all just a drill.

Those sacks of hexagon, it wasn't explosives, it was just sacks of sugar.

And we were doing this just to test you.

And well done, you passed the test.

And he gives the phone operator a colour TV for passing this test.

And it's so extraordinary that even the local FSB in Resan at that point don't appear to believe it.

The residents don't believe it.

Journalists at the time don't believe it.

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