Helena Merriman

but it disappears into the wind. And I think it's partly because the idea back then that the FSB could have been involved in something like this just seemed so unimaginable, so beyond the realms of what anyone thought was possible at that time, that people just couldn't believe it. It sounded like a conspiracy theory, you're saying. Exactly. And so you almost have this divide between what happens in the Western press,

which moves on, partly because you then have President Yeltsin resigns on December 31st, Putin becomes acting president, so events are moving very quickly. And so in the Western press it's full of coverage of Vladimir Putin, the new acting president of Russia.

And he were warmly welcomed by the West, it seems, at that time, right? He was thought to be leading Russia in a new direction. Exactly. And you have Western leaders lining up to meet him and court him. And Tony Blair comes to Russia and watches opera with him. And people want to make friends with this new leader, who they think is someone they can do business with.

Meanwhile in Russia, a lot of Russian journalists are asking very uncomfortable questions still. But in a way those questions get sidelined, because there's this new distraction, which is Putin sending fighter jets to bomb the Chechen capital Grozny. Misery returns to Chechnya. Just three years after its war with Russia, the fighter bombers are back.

Se, mikä on niin mielenkiintoista, on se, että sen jälkeen Vladimir Putin käsittelee huonon muodostumisen. Hän on melko jätettävän vanha KGB-kysymys. Ruotsissa kutsutaan häneltä syrjämiskaa, joka on syrjämäisä. Hän on nyt muuttanut syrjämäisiä sivuilta. Hän jatkaa polttoaineita. Hän antaa syrjämäisiä keskusteluja alapuolelle.

His popularity ratings soar. When you look at his ratings back in August, before the bombs, only 2% of Russians thought that Putin would make a good president. Just a few months later, after the bombs, after this new war in Chechnya, Putin being all over the news, his ratings have soared to over 40%. It's that quick.

As a result of that war, did Russian authorities arrest any suspects related to the bombings? Here's where it gets interesting. These apartments are blown up in September over a matter of just a few weeks. You then have this new war in Chechnya. But at the same time, Putin is now campaigning to become president.

Joten oikeastaan sillä hetkellä hän on presidentti koko ajan. Se on vain muutama kuukausi ennen valinnasta. Hän ei tarvitse kampanjoja. Hän käsittelee ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien ristiriitaajien

And in February 2002, there's a group of Russian parliamentarians who say, look, we need an official public inquiry into the bonds. And there's a vote. And hundreds of parliamentarians in the Russian Duma actually vote for it, only a few vote against. But because it has to be unanimous, it fails. So there's no independent commission? Well, there's no parliamentary commission. I see. But there's an independent one. So a few parliamentarians say, okay, well, if there can't be a parliamentary inquiry, we'll just do one ourselves.

A bunch of them get together. It's a bunch of politicians, journalists, lawyers, some grieving family members. But right from the start, things are very hard for them. So one of the people on this commission, a lawyer called Mikhail Trapashkin, within just a few days of him agreeing to be on this commission, his house is raided.

There's another member of the commission, Sergei Yushenkov. He's the vice chair. This is a year after they've begun their work. He's coming home one day and he's shot to death in front of his apartment in Moscow. His wife finds his body lying in the street. And just a few months later, another member of the commission starts feeling unwell. He goes to hospital. His internal organs shut down. His skin peels off.

It takes about 16 days for him to die. Doctors at the time say he just had an allergic reaction to something, but journalists at the time said they're sure that he was poisoned. So you have these very mysterious deaths that eventually result in that commission falling apart. And was anyone ever arrested for the bombings?

Jep, niin sitten samaan aikaan sinulla on hallituskysymys, ja hyvin vähän on tietoa siitä, ja olemme tehneet paljon tutkimusta, jotta yrittäisimme tutkia, mitä tapahtui. Mutta jopa journaliitit silloin sanoivat, että se oli todella vaikea saada huomioon sen, koska niin paljon tapahtui kiinni loppuun. Minun mielestäni vain, että annan sinulle esimerkkinä siitä, miten...

The government's response to the bombs differed from the way other governments have looked at terror attacks. In Russia, just a few days after those apartment buildings were bombed, the government removes what was left of those apartment buildings. So a lot of the forensic evidence that might have existed is never found. Compare that to 9-11.

when that site was a crime scene for months and months and months after. So when various lawyers do get access to some of the government files on the reports, there's very little found. But there is eventually a trial, and that takes place in October 2003. And by that point, there's only two people that the government has managed to find who they say are responsible for the bombs. And were they Chechen? Well, good question. You would expect them to be, given that this is who the government blamed for the bombs, but they're not.

He had arrested a number of people, quite a few of them from Dagestan, which is a republic next to Chechnya. And in the end you have this trial, it goes on for two months. These two men, non-Chechens, are found guilty for a string of charges, handling explosives, but also for being connected to two of those four bombs and they're sentenced to life in prison.

How do you characterize what the evidence tells you after doing the series? Yeah, it's the question we've wrestled with for weeks and months as we've been looking at this story. When you look at it by the end,

There's a lot of circumstantial evidence. There are a lot of theories. There are a lot of theories that point in both directions. You can make an argument that the Chechen militants had the motive to do it. 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.

Toiset sanovat, että katsokaa vain tämän vuoden jälkeen tehtävät Chechenin militantit. Se oli sellaista asiaa, jota he tehtivät. 2002 oli Moskova-teaterin säädössä, jossa he ottivat enemmän kuin 900 henkilöä haastatteluun. 2004 militantit tappasivat kaksi polttoainea, jotka liittyivät Chechenin alueeseen. Moskova-metsässä oli syrjintävaihtoja. Joten paljon ihmisiä tuntui, että se sopii loppuun. Se sopii heidän päätöksensä.

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. This theory of possible FSB involvement, it sounds like it's highly disputed. What does Putin, what does the Russian government say? What has it said over the years?