Alexander Cherkasov: If we re talking about the bombings and the role of the security services in Russian history, then we can put this investigation, this book, this account of the events (as you correctly put it, it is one account) in the context of other investigations.
You know, there ve already been attempts on the part of the security services to seize power with a wave of bombings, and there were successful investigations. For example, at the end of the Narodnaya Volya ( People s Will ) movement one of its leaders, Degayev, made a deal with Sudeykin, a leader of the Okhranka, that they would organize a series of terrorist attacks and that his majesty the emperor, sorely afraid, would give Sudeykin dictatorial powers. The members of the Narodnaya Volya themselves conducted an investigation. German Alexandrovich Lopatin brought the whole matter to light. The conspiracy fell through, Sudeykin, the would-be dictator, was killed, and Degayev was permitted to emigrate. But a meticulous investigation of the specific facts of the case was carried out at the time.
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There were other instances of cooperation between the security services and terrorists.
Recall the whole Azef affair - it has quite a bit of bearing on our own case. If we assume that terrorists always take orders from the security services, then where do we put Azef?
He, it turns out, had connections to the security services and at the same time organized terrorist attacks against the Russian government. Was he, then, really totally controlled by the security services? No, the situation was more complicated.
In general, cooperation between the terrorist underground and the security services is a complex matter that has to be handled quite carefully - one has to avoid taking a onesided perspective, of assuming that everything is being controlled from a single point.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Alexander Vladimirovich. But as far as I understand the book, it makes no mention of any underground. The underground there consists of the highest ranks of the Federal Security Service, which organized everything for a specific political purpose.
Oleg Orlov: I completely agree with Yuri Georgievich when he says that people who can do what they did in Chechnya, who can treat their own people the way they treated Russian citizens in Chechnya, who are capable of lying to their own people for the entire length of the first and second war - that from such people, you really can expect such a thing, that based on general considerations, this account is highly plausible. But then we really have to look for the facts. So far, there are no facts that could conclusively prove that the security services were behind this. But that this is highly likely - yes, certainly.
Yuri Felshtinsky: I d like to draw the guests and listeners attention to the Ryazan episode. We, I mean myself and Litvinenko, are firmly convinced that in the Ryazan episode absolutely everything has been proven. I can present our account right now, in a purely formal fashion, leaving all emotions aside.
What do we know about Ryazan? We know that bags with an unknown substance were placed in the basement. We have expert testimony - the expert testimony of the Ryazan FSB, from several different experts - confirming that these bags contained explosives.
We have expert testimony about the detonator and a photograph of the detonator, confirming that the detonator was real. We have, by the way, additional testimony by independent experts from several countries, also confirming that the detonator was real.
We have a criminal investigation, which was initiated at the time because of the discovery of a real detonator and bags with explosives.
And we have totally bald-faced, false statements by the FSB, at various different stages, which at the very least tell us that the FSB is lying from start to finish about the entire Ryazan episode. We have the Vympel Special Forces Agents who were identified by the FSB itself. The FSB itself said that, yes, these particular individuals placed these particular bags - which according to expert testimony contained explosives - in the basement in Ryazan, and here is the actual detonator, which according to expert testimony is a real detonator.
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Tell me, please, what other proof do we need in the case of Ryazan? The only weak link in this whole account, so to speak, is that the building did not explode. Well, thank God!
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Yuri Georgievich. Well, I think that if we had a lawyer here representing any of the individuals who handled the bags, he would cite arguments that could refute your account of the events. Because there was additional expert testimony, and this additional expert testimony - which was now conducted by the central office of the FSB, in Moscow - this testimony revealed that there was only sugar inside the bags, and that the detonator was not real, but just a dummy, a model. This is, naturally, a matter for a public investigation, which is precisely the purpose of Sergei Kovalyov s Commission.
As you say in your book: Patrushev reasoned correctly that for terrorism against one s own people, one could be imprisoned for life, while for idiocy, in Russia, one would not even lose one s job. So they pretended they were idiots.
Sergei Adamovich, what if your Commission actually determines that, in your judgment, it was sheer indisputable idiocy? How would you react in such a case?
Sergei Kovalyov (laughing): You know, let s wait until the Commission determines something absolutely indisputable.
As far as the Ryazan episode is concerned, I must say that this is in fact the best chapter in the book. It is a very painstaking compilation of all existing public statements pertaining to the case and quite logical in its analysis.
Can there be a different account of the Ryazan episode? I ll take the liberty - without any proof, of course - of proposing my own account in favor of the KGB.
Yes, without a doubt, the KGB got tangled up in its own lies. Without a doubt, the KGB broke the law. But the question is: Was it planning to blow up the building?
I, for instance, am ready to propose the following possibility. The FSB was playing the following game. First, to convince people that the terrorists are not asleep and that they re still attempting to terrorize the population. And second, that the valiant security apparatus is thwarting these attempts in a successful and timely manner. This was the planned operation and it went wrong for technical reasons, and the KGB - excuse me, the FSB - was forced to declare that it was all a training exercise, which was a lie.
There s an enormous number of completely unexplainable inconsistencies, even to the point where the president himself declared that a terrorist attack was being planned, and then it turns out that this was all a strange training exercise (a training exercise, by the way, that was also illegal).
Such an account of the events is possible. I don t insist on it, but to reject accounts of this kind, accounts that go in this direction, would be extremely dangerous.
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Lev Roytman: Thank you, Sergei Adamovich. Your account - if we suppose that it is correct - likewise points to the monstrous nature of this organization. The FSB Blows Up Russia has a chapter called Instead of an Epilogue. The FSB in Power which describes what it means for this organization to have power over the country.
You, Yuri Georgievich, reach the conclusion that the FSB is very close to the regime in Russia. Perhaps you re exaggerating, by the way?
Yuri Felshtinsky: No. This is the fundamental problem with the book. The main problem is in our gross underestimation of the globally criminal role that the FSB plays.
The main problem with this book is that we were able to show only the small tip of an enormous iceberg, and that the reality is far more frightening. The main problem with this book is that it was written when the FSB was in the process of seizing power, but perhaps had not yet seized it entirely.
I m afraid that the future that awaits us in the next few years is far worse even than the present. And when the FSB and the Russian government, absolutely without any qualms, appoint General Zdanovich as the main censor of the country under the guise of Deputy Chair of the VGTRK (All-
Russian Television and Radio Company) on issues of security, and not one person in the whole entire country (this is not to be taken literally) is capable of coming out and saying loudly and clearly that this is a shame, that it s a shame when a small-time Goebbels becomes the censor of a state-owned television station in a time when Russia is supposed to be free, then, I m sorry, the only thing I can say is that what we wrote about is not nearly everything, that this criminal activity is far more serious.
When this same Zdanovich blatantly says in an interview in Izvestiya, if I m not mistaken, that there are no ex-KGB agents, and says this not with shame but with pride; when the leading members of the Government Duma, and the public, and the press, all come forward to defend the KGB - Sergei Adamovich misspoke himself, but not by accident, because the KGB is precisely what it is, and all the same people who worked for the KGB are today working for the FSB, the personnel is the same, these people have not changed; then, in my opinion, the future that awaits us is far from bright.
Lev Roytman: Yuri Georgievich, by the way, as the host of the program, I cannot fully agree with the statement (since we re talking about facts) that no one in Russia seriously spoke out against General Zdanovich s appointment. There were such voices, there were such publications. Some of them appeared on the radio program I hosted - it was called General Zdanovich Is Appointed Sergeant Major Voltaire - precisely in connection with this event.
Sergei Adamovich, you are a member of the Government Duma. In your view, is the FSB already in power, close to power, not far from power?
Sergei Kovalyov: Unquestionably, already in power. On this conclusion I m in complete agreement with Yuri Georgievich. For me, this is obvious. We re building, and building very effectively, a governable democracy, as was in fact proclaimed by our political
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leaders. Now they check themselves and keep quiet on this score - well, experienced consultants have probably explained to them that such phrases ought to be avoided.
Moreover, an official from the president s administration, who has some connection to human rights issues, once said to his opponent in a conversation: You don t understand: we re building a Hitler-proof legislature. And he explained his words in the following way. Imagine, he said, that Veshnyakov was the head of the Central Electoral Committee in Germany in 1933. Do you really think that Hitler would have had a chance of coming to power? You see, that s what they re doing, that s what these people from the KGB are doing.
Getting back to the problems with the book and the problems raised in today s discussion, I d like to say that in my view, my main disagreement with Yuri Georgievich consists in the following. The fact that the second Chechen war enabled Lieutenant Colonel Putin to get elected president is indisputable. The fact that the bombings in the apartment buildings turned out to be the most important psychological factor in the approval of this war by the public is also indisputable. The question consists in the following: Were these explosions organized by the FSB or were they used by the FSB?
This is not an empty question. You see, the book is tendentious. You can t construct such serious charges - charges that, as a matter of fact, make it impossible to live in this country - you can t construct such serious charges on the kinds of strained interpretations that all three of us - the Moscow side of our roundtable - have tried to point out. Budyonnovsk is just an illustration. We could have given other examples of obvious tendentiousness.
The book is important and necessary, because it contains a substantial amount of material, and because it articulates an account of the events that might be tendentious, but is logically consistent. In my view - I agree with Cherkasov - this account is somewhat naive. But it exists.
Let us painstakingly and meticulously investigate all accounts of these tragic events.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Sergei Adamovich. I would only note that any collage of facts will look tendentious, might appear frivolous, until the inner truth of these facts, that is, their motivation, is substantiated by the impartial verdict of a court. But we re not likely to see a court verdict regarding this matter, these bombings, anytime soon.
As for Yuri Felshtinsky s and Alexander Litvinenko s political notion, no Russian court will ever pronounce any kind of verdict on it, naturally, nor would any court do so in any other country. So any notion will always have certain lacunae, gaps, which don t hold water, and about which nothing can be done.
But the next question. We ve discussed the book. But how could a listener obtain a copy of it?
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Yuri Felshtinsky: I must say that I approached many publishers - I won t name them now - with the proposal to publish this book in Russia. Every single publisher that I talked to (and I have good connections in the publishing world, I ve published very many books in Russia) explained to me that they were not in a position to publish the book, because they were afraid. Afraid physically for their lives and afraid financially for the lives of their publishing houses, because they understood that the government would at the very least ruin them financially if they published it.
I d like to use this opportunity and my participation in this program to say that neither I nor Litvinenko have any objections to this book being published in Russia by any editors and publishers without any further agreement with us and without paying us any royalties. In other words, we re giving all publishers the permission to publish it.
At present, the book can really be read only on the internet. I know that it s posted on the website Grani.ru. I know that literally in the next few days Grani.ru will put up a special site devoted to the events of September 1999. The full text of the book has been posted there for several months.
And also, if I may, I will comment on Sergei Adamovich s last statement, because it s very interesting.
I m afraid that another very serious problem with this book consists precisely in the fact that, as Sergei Adamovich said, if you accept it, then you can t live in this country. And I m afraid that this is really the main problem. That since it would be very frightening for the listeners and the readers to accept what this book has to say, their mind and their whole being tries to latch onto certain imprecise details, certain slips in the book, certain not very convincing arguments, in order to tell itself: no, it still can t be true, the authors must be mistaken. Because otherwise it really is impossible to live in this country.
As for the evidence, and the objection that the charges are very grave but the evidence is meager, the evidence in the Ryazan case is abundant.
Svoboda.org note: The text was transcribed from a live broadcast without being edited by the host of the program. We apologize for possible inaccuracies.
Somnenie.narod.ru note: There may be inaccuracies in Kovalyov s words about Felshtinsky s account of the events, Logically consistent, somewhat naive& and in Cherkasov s account of Sudeykin s conspiracy. The transcription is accurate in all other details.
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Appendix 12
Analysis of A. Gochiyaev s statement To the Chairman of the Public Commission for the investigation of the bombing of apartment blocks in Moscow, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation S.A. Kovalyov, Moscow London, July 25, 2002 Dear Sergei Adamovich!
We are forwarding to you materials on the testimony of ACHIMEZ GOCHIYAEV for consideration at a session of your Commission.
Yours truly,
Alexander Litvinenko Yuri Felshtinsky
The Testimony of Achimez Gochiyaev Materials for a session of the Public Commission for the investigation of the bombings of apartment blocks in Moscow Prepared by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky July 25, 2002 1. The circumstances of contacts with Gochiyaev In late March 2002 an unknown individual phoned Yuri Felshtinsky and offered information concerning Gochiyaev.
In order to make a decision we paused for a while. The second telephone call from the unknown individual was received in mid-April. Agreement was reached for a meeting i
n one of the European countries.
In late April 2002 a meeting took place between Felshtinsky and Litvinenko and a messenger. The messenger was given a list of questions for Gochiyaev concerning (1) the authenticity of Gochiyaev s identity and (2) the circumstances of the terrorist acts in Moscow in September 1999, and also a video camera for recording Gochiyaev s answers.
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Several days later in a different European country a meeting took place with a certain intermediary. We were given a video recording and several photographs establishing Gochiyaev s identity and also his written testimony.
Alexander Litvinenko Page 32