Helena Merriman

In 1999, the Kremlin's grip on Chechnya was slipping.

Yeltsin's government was unraveling.

This was a moment of weakness for the Russian state.

So perhaps a good chance for them to try and take back control.

Others say, you know, just look at the attacks that Chechen militants carried out in the years after.

This was the kind of thing that they would do.

You had this siege in the Moscow theater in 2002 where they took more than 900 people hostage.

In 2004, militants attacked two planes and those militants were linked to the Chechen cause.

There were suicide bombings in the Moscow metro.

So for a lot of people, they felt, well, look, it fits the bill.

You know, it fits their pattern of behavior.

And then others who point to the FSB say, well, look, how would Chechen militants have got these explosives all the way to Moscow?

Why didn't the FSB in Moscow tell the local FSB in Ryazan about the drill?

So there are so many strange twists and turns to this story.

So the FSB, they've always denied any involvement in the apartment bombs.

Vladimir Putin himself, he wrote an authorized biography and that was published in April 2000.

So just six months after the bombs.

And he responds to these allegations.

He says, what's blowing up our own apartment buildings?

You know, that is really utter nonsense.