The Independent (UK)

6 January 2000

[for personal use only]

RUSSIAN AGENTS 'BLEW UP MOSCOW FLATS'

By Helen Womack in Moscow

The Independent has obtained a videotape on which a Russian officer, captured by the Chechens, "confesses" that Russian special services committed the Moscow apartment-block bombings that ignited the latest war in Chechnya and propelled Vladimir Putin into the Kremlin.

On the video, shot by a Turkish journalist last month before Grozny was finally cut off by Russian forces, the captured Russian identifies himself as Alexei Galtin of the GRU (Russian military intelligence service). The bearded captive acknowledges as his own papers displayed by the Chechens that identify him as a "Senior Lieutenant, Armed Special Services, General Headquarters for Special Forces of the Russian Federation".

The Ministry of Defence was checking yesterday whether there was indeed such a GRU officer. "Even if he exists, you understand what methods could have been used on him in captivity," said a junior officer, who asked not to be named.

Colonel Yakov Firsov of the Ministry of Defence said on the record: "The (Chechen) bandits feel their end is near and so they are using all manner of dirty tricks in the information war. This is a provocation. This is rubbish. The Russian armed forces protect the people. It is impossible that they would attack their own people."

On the video, Lieutenant Galtin said he was captured at the border between Dagestan and Chechnya while on a mine-laying mission. "I did not take part in the explosions of the buildings in Moscow and Dagestan but I have information about it. I know who is responsible for the bombings in Moscow (and Dagestan). It is the FSB (Russian security service), in cooperation with the GRU, that is responsible for the explosions in Volgodonsk and Moscow." He then named other GRU officers.

Nearly 300 people died when four multi-storey apartment blocks were destroyed by terrorist bombs in September. The attacks provoked Mr. Putin, appointed prime minister the month before, to launch a new war in Chechnya.

Sedat Aral, a photographer with ISF News Pictures, said he shot the video in a bunker in Grozny, where he met Abu Musayev, head of Chechen rebel intelligence. Mr Musayev said the Chechens could prove they were not responsible for the apartment-block bombings.

The Russian public backs the "anti-terrorist campaign" in Chechnya, which has so boosted the popularity of its author, Mr Putin, that Boris Yeltsin has retired early to make way for his chosen successor.

However the war started, the beneficiary is clearly Mr Putin. The former head of Russia's domestic intelligence service is now poised to realise his presidential ambitions.