APARTMENT BOMBINGS OF SEPTEMBER 1999

   A series of explosions ripped through apartment blocks in the cities of Moscow, Buynaksk in Dagestan, and Volgodonsk in the Rostov Oblast between 4 and 16 September 1999. The death toll of the combined bombings approached 300. Occurring around the same time as Shamil Basayev’s incursion into Dagestan, the bombings were a key factor in Moscow’s decision to embark on a second Chechen War later that year. According to a 2002 federal investigation, the bombings were organized by Achemez Gochiyayev, an ethnic Karachay, and ordered by the Arab-Circassian Ibn al-Khattab. A number of figures in and outside of Russia, most notably Boris Berezovsky, have asserted that the bombings were a false flag operation by the FSB to bring Vladimir Putin to power, though little evidence has ever been brought to light that would support such a theory.