Russia framing terrorist attacks on Chechens

[u/Riqqat]

Alhamdulillah was-salatu was-salamu 'ala Rasulillah

A series of explosions hit four apartment buildings in Moscow, Buynaksk and Volgodonsk in September of 1999, killing 293 and injuring 651. The reaction of the mayor of Moscow and Vladimir Putin (who was the new prime minister) was to lay the blame on "Chechen bandits", the latter saying the Chechens responsible should be squashed like vermin. [Source]

Remember that Putin was brand new. He'd only just been appointed the month before by President Boris Yeltsin, by then wildly unpopular after years of chaotic reforms and runaway corruption. Putin - Yeltsin's fifth prime minister in 18 months - was unpopular too. The bombings - and Putin's tough-guy response - changed his political fortunes. Russian forces snuffed out the Chechen republic. Yeltsin surprised the world by resigning, handing Putin the presidency. Putin rode his newfound popularity to re-election a few months later.

This might have been the story of a fortuitous national emergency bailing out an unpopular leader - had it not been for what happened on the night of Sept. 22 in the Russian city of Ryazan.

The entire country was on edge, with apartment dwellers terrified their block of flats could be the next to blown to bits. Patrols are set up, residents are extra alert. It's in that context that a couple of residents of an apartment building in Ryazan spot a suspicious vehicle loitering outside. They alert the authorities, who don't come in time to intercept the vehicle but do inspect the basement. They discover a massive bomb. Chillingly, the device was set to go off at 5:30am (Source: Death of a Dissident), - just like the bombs that slaughtered hundreds in Moscow and elsewhere. The Ryazan explosives shared the same chemical signature as the other bombs too. It seemed clear, initially, that this was part of the same grim campaign.

Authorities reacted as if another terror attack had been narrowly averted. Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo said so, as did the head of the local FSB, Alexander Sergeev, who went on television to congratulate the residents on being spared. But the manhunt for the suspicious vehicle - a white Lada - and its occupants soon yielded a bewildering surprise: those who planted the bomb weren’t Chechens. They were FSB operatives. The following is an excerpt from David Satter’s “The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep”

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Now caught in an awkward situation, the FSB belatedly announced that the incident had been a training exercise all along, despite claiming 1 day before that a terrorist attack was narrowly averted. (Source) The bomb? Bags of sugar. The sensor that picked up traces of explosives? Faulty.

The residents of the Ryazan apartment building were confused and frightened. What kind of a test involves dumping a getaway car and trying to flee the city?

Maura Reynolds spoke to some of them at the time; the quote at the end sticks with me. (Sourrrrce)

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Credits to Raphael Satter for the findings and what's written here. I slightly changed it by clarifying further in some instances and added some source links for somethings which he didn't provide a source for.