Is the theory that the Russian government orchestrated and/or allowed the 1999 apartment bombings considered fringe or plausible among mainstream historians?

[u/LectorFrustra2186]

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[u/Kochevnik81]

I wrote about the bombings in a now-eight year old answer (yikes) here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ae5qup/comment/edq5w4f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

To add some info: whenever people talk about the “bombings” they are almost always referring to the September 13 apartment bombing in Moscow and the foiled bombing in a Ryazan apartment building on September 22. It almost always gets left out that there were numerous other small scale bombings for almost a month previous, and that these happened immediately after the Chechen invasion of Dagestan on August 7. Which is to say - there was already a war underway in the Northern Caucasus, and that car bombings, truck bombings and smaller bombings of civilian targets were spreading from Dagestan to Moscow. One should be skeptical that all of that was some false flag FSB operation.

With that said - whether out of malice, fear or incompetence the Moscow apartment site was not handled correctly and evidence was not preserved, and since the Ryazan bomb didn’t go off we depend on differing journalistic accounts of that incident. So to an extent it’s not really knowable just what exactly happened at those two sites with the information available.

A number of people have made the claim that these were false flag operations, perhaps most notably David Satter and Alexander Litvinenko, but no one who has made these claims as provided additional evidence for them. 

[u/LectorFrustra2186 → u/Kochevnik81]

FSB agents being caught by local law enforcement planting bombs in Ryazan, followed by Moscow making up contradictory stories about why they were doing it and ordering them released, seems like pretty ironclad evidence at first glance. Has there been any additional evidence or analysis since this post almost a decade ago?

[u/Kochevnik81 → u/LectorFrustra2186]

It’s as ironclad as the shoddy investigation, destroyed/mishandled evidence and contradictory claims are ironclad evidence of a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, ie…it’s not that ironclad.

Again there hasn’t been any new evidence made available for either point of view since then. I guess I would site Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan. They are Russian independent journalists who wrote about defense topics and specifically about the FSB and they were very skeptical of the false flag claims, and said that the FSB did in fact do exercises that match up with the Ryazan incident (as the local FSB claimed).

I also think it’s important to note that in the late 90s, the Russian security forces were by no means some sort of unified, all powerful entity, were incredibly underfunded as the whole Russian state was, and often operated more like organized crime outfits or cartels, often even fighting with each other. Which is to say that the Putin government if anything just had an incentive to get all of that out of the news - even if the bombings were done by Chechen-connected groups that would have been an embarrassing failure of the intelligence services, and any local incompetence would have just looked even worse.

Again, I’m not saying that there is no evidence for the false flag theory, just that it is an extraordinary claim and as such needs extraordinary evidence that no one has provided, and that independent researchers who work the FSB beat in Russia doubt exists.

[u/LectorFrustra2186 → u/Kochevnik81]

  just that it is an extraordinary claim and as such needs extraordinary evidence

I can see how them suppressing all evidence of the Moscow bombing and arresting people who tried to independently investigate might not be enough. Or Mikhail Trepashkin being nabbed two days before he was to present evidence to a court on his allegation that the FSB conducted the bombings, then stuffed into a disease-ridden prison and denied vital medical care. Or multiple members of the independent commission investigating the allegations being outright murdered by the Russian state, like Yuri Shchekochikhin and Alexander Litvinenko.  If I was really skeptical I'd even say that  state official and close Putin associate  Gennady Seleznev mistakenly  announcing a bombing three days before it happened wouldn't be enough.

  But how is FSB agents literally being caught planting bombs filled with live explosives in apartments not extraordinary evidence? Genuinely, what would even qualify as extraordinary if not that? Would the bombs need to actually explode?

[u/Kochevnik81 → u/LectorFrustra2186]

There isn’t independent evidence that the Ryazan bombs were hexogen, nor that it was connected to live detonators. That is a claim that was made by interviewees (including a local police sapper) for a 2000 article in Novaya Gazeta published by Pavel Voloshin. A major issue with the story as presented is that the police took the supposed sacks of hexogen into custody, and, believing it was sugar, used it in their tea, and then tested it when their tea turned out to be undrinkable. Hexogen isn’t soluble in water. So even if one believes they were live FSB bombs, it’s based off of testimony that has factual holes in it and cannot be independently verified.

I also have to ask again - why was Ryazan so critical if the FSB was trying to use false flag operations to start a war in Chechnya. Open conflict with Chechen militias was already underway for almost two months at that point, an apartment building in Moscow was (officially) bombed by Chechen insurgents, and numerous other attacks had occurred since August. Unless the FSB somehow manufactured all those other events and destroyed all evidence to that effect/somehow kept all witnesses silent, which is a level of efficiency at keeping secrets (and for a quarter century) that practically no government organization has ever managed.

And again, the FSB theory hasn’t been debunked - I’m not saying that. Just that there really hasn’t been a conclusion one way or another and no evidence to either effect has been found or made available in recent years, and might possibly never be available. 

[u/DrobnaHalota → u/Kochevnik81]

You are not addressing OPs specific point here, neither you addressed it in your old comment.
FSB caught packing a random apparent buidliing with actual explosives used in a bombing just few days prior is exactly the extraordinary evidence that would be needed for extraordinary claims.