Chechnya - Spetsnaz (new photos)

[RomanS]

Here are some more for you. Just scanned them.

Thanks to my bro Sergei K. (Brotherhood of Red Berets, BRATISHKA)

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-10.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-11.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-12.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-14.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-15.jpg

To make it clear. This photo is not in Afghanistan. It is Chechnya near Itum Kali 2001.
And a full version photo as well
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-18.jpg

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-19.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1e.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1f.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1g.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1gt.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1ju.jpg

Some of my good friends "GRIFF" MVD
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1k.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1o.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-2.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-20.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-22.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-23.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-24.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-21.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-2d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-3d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-4.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-5.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-5d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-6d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-7.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-77.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-7d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-8.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-9.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-9d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/f.jpg


Screen captures from the Video of Operations in Chechnya by Vityaz. My friend is sending me a copy here shortly. Lots of great stuff. He just returned from another tour, and got plenty of material. He works with Brotherhood of Red Berets.

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-16.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1gy.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-25.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-6.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-d1.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-df.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-ju.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/ssd.jpg

[UkrainianAmerican]

Awesome pics!
woot

[RomanS]

was going through my collection, and found this awesome photo.
Very rare

GRU operator in Afghanistan after they hit a caravan.
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-28.jpg

[Catch22]

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1d.jpg
http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-21.jpg



First of all - thanks for great and somewhat unique pics Permskii.

I've asked you once about diffrent types of new helmets used in VSR and MVD - can you tell me about these two seen in above pics (not about steel one of course). Which one is Sfera or Borit? How many kinds of pots are in use - both in Russian army and MVD units?

[RomanS]

SPHERA-S on the first photo is fully customizable. It comes with 3 different metal plates. The top half of a cirle, and the sides. All that goes inside of a bag that goes over your head.

SKIFF is the titanium green helmet on the second photo. Its been used since Afgan war. Some models come with a face cover that looks like metal welder's mask. It is much lighter than Sphera.

All those helmets are used by MVD's Internal Troops, and also by FSB.

The Ministery of Defence has different versions of steel pot helmets. VDV just got their new ones. Similar to American kevlar

[Catch22]

Thank you again for a quick response :)

I guess this is the one you mentioned as similiar to US?

http://www.tridentmilitary.com/New-Photos6/kevlar.jpg

[anonymous individual]

I feel like I always repeat myself whenever Permskii post photos; yet, I have no problem with say the same stuff.

Always the best pictures on the Net period

[tony6]

Permski:
Say-don't You have a standarised camo pattern in Russian army?
On every picture of Russian soldiers there are always at least few types of camo. So how it really is?

[intelligenzija]

I think "flora" is actually the standard camo

[16 OBr SpN]

Good pics!

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-24.jpg

Are you sure they are SpN VV? ;)

Regards,
16 OBr SpN

[tony6]

"flora"?
Which one is it?

[Marmot1]

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1e.jpg
Reactive aromur??? (Wooden boxes :lol: ) or what? all BMP's have them attached in similar way so there must be some purpose to do so...

[Russian Texan]

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1e.jpg
Reactice aromur??? (Wooden boxes :lol: ) or what? all BTR's have them attached in similar way so there must be some purpose to do so...

Ammo crates that do not fit inside maybe...

[HELEX]

Very impressive Pics!

["sniper" tom]

WOW, thanks allot PermskiiOMON !
really the best pictures ,as always!

[Groove]

Great Pics !

How much i have to pay in russia to buy such a weapon ?

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-df.jpg

Greetings

Groove

[FDF_Hemppis]

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-14.jpg

Dudes look like they are going to a holiday! j/k ;)
I don't think that any other army's infantry takes rides from the armored vehicles like the ruskies do?

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-19.jpg

A big no no, that is no way to be holding a rifle? I mean, on the long run, the barrel might bend and all? And the must-have sunglasses p-)

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-1e.jpg

I think those are just ordinary ammo boxes...

Oh, btw, can anyone give a look link to a document and/or explanation on the chechnya conflict? What are the reasons behind it, what went wrong hence the armor casualties, why the fighting, why is it still going on and so on... and I'm not looking for a "they are f***ers, and we'll bomb them back to the stoneage!!11" type of an answer...

anyway, great pics!

[intelligenzija]

Dudes look like they are going to a holiday! j/k
I don't think that any other army's infantry takes rides from the armored vehicles like the ruskies do?

Why everyone has a problem with that?
http://www.southernmessenger.org/images/Confederate-Flag-VietNam.jpg

[anonymous individual]

Good pics!

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-24.jpg

Are you sure they are SpN VV? ;)

Regards,
16 OBr SpN

Are they the Marines?

[RomanS]

Good pics!

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-24.jpg

Are you sure they are SpN VV? ;)

Regards,
16 OBr SpN
Morpehi
always had a lot of respect for them

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

Dudes look like they are going to a holiday! j/k
I don't think that any other army's infantry takes rides from the armored vehicles like the ruskies do?

Why everyone has a problem with that?
http://www.southernmessenger.org/images/Confederate-Flag-VietNam.jpg

Definaely would rather want to ride on top of that then in that ;)
Great pics

[Falco]

Good post mate ! woot

[Fulix]

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-18.jpg

Who are them?

[Russian Texan]

Who are them?

I think they are 16 OBrSpN colleagues - spetznaz GRU.

[AK-Lover]

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-18.jpg
Spetznatz flip out all the time and kill EVERYBODY they see! One time this Spetznatz killed a whole town just because a kid closed a window. rofl

[RuSoKaR]

http://www.simondog.com/FSB/Untitled-24.jpg

Russian marines

Is that a chechnia on the backround?

And if it is I where was it?

I only heared that Morpehi were deployed in Groznyi once in the first chechen war.

[GazB]

Those ammo boxes on the BMP-2 just show a solution to the lack of internal storage space for gear in the BMP series vehicles.

[Hate mail]

Ummmm, take it from a Serb soldier: those ammo boxes are full of earth and bricks, to increase the survival rate of those lightly armored BTRs.

[Zmey]

Permskii...

Awesome pics. Simply the best.

Kak pogoda v Arizone?

Z.S.


P.S. dont take it from the Serbian soldier... he doesnt know the difference beteen BTR and BMP's.

[Hate mail]

rofl

That's because those are used only by our police force and I was never there!

:oops:

Now I see the guy was commenting on those things up there, and not the BTRs down here. :oops:

[Zmey]

Absolutely no excuses - you are fired.

:D

Z.S.

[HELEX]

I see a total lack of sunglasses at the russian soldiers, that is not cool :lol:

[CannibalSquirel]

Nice pic´s.

[16 OBr SpN]

Russian marines

Is that a chechnia on the backround?

And if it is I where was it?

I only heared that Morpehi were deployed in Groznyi once in the first chechen war.

They were deployed in the 2nd Chechen.
Nojai Yurt, Vedeno, Shali, Harachoi.
As far as I remember, those were the 414th and 876th air-assault batallions. They worked closely with VDV.
Они чехам много крови попили, вампиры наши!! :D

Regards,
16 OBr SpN

[Hate mail]

Hehehe...

[tony6]

Ok-so I guess nobody will answer my question... :(
("flora"?
Which one is it?)

[intelligenzija]

basically flora camo looks like this:
http://www.henrikc.dk/camouflage/russia_flora_front.jpg

[RomanS]

Ummmm, take it from a Serb soldier: those ammo boxes are full of earth and bricks, to increase the survival rate of those lightly armored BTRs.

When your APC gets hit, any ammo inside will cook off and will be a potential danger for the whole unit.

[RomanS]

http://tridentmilitary.com/new-photos10/PARA-FLORA-B.jpg
http://tridentmilitary.com/new-photos10/r87d-b.jpg
http://tridentmilitary.com/New-Photos7/r91camo.jpg

[Zmey]

That is one ugly-ass manequen (spelling?)
Nice camo though.

Z.S.

[Kingpin]

I see a total lack of sunglasses at the russian soldiers, that is not cool :lol:

Take this :)

http://www.vrazvedka.ru/main/grafika/im/photo-reports2-19.jpg

http://czeczenia.weblab.pl/800/cz13km.jpg

[Yard Ape]

http://www.imageshack.us/img1/3439/untitled67.JPG

[Yard Ape]

double tap

[Yard Ape]

double tap

[Kingpin]

http://www.imageshack.us/img1/3439/untitled67.JPG

Yes

[RSK]

Amazing Pics!

Thanks!

[ALBANIAN]

these are very similar images, of a war in a country near chechenya, and to free this country, millions of chechen, tartars, uzbeks, siberians, and other "inferior" races died.
Thankfulnes is not a virue of greats, bigs and mother****ers!

http://digilander.libero.it/circololuxemburg/ss.jpg

http://digilander.libero.it/circololuxemburg/impicc2.jpg


http://digilander.libero.it/circololuxemburg/impicc.jpg

http://members.tripod.com/cenerelli/waffen_ss.jpg

http://www.feldgrau.com/pk-65775.jpg

http://www.1939-45.org/images/imarticl/ss/erwache.jpg

http://www.feldgrau.com/pk-65775.jpg

[Stavka]

these are very similar images, of a war in a country near chechenya, and to free this country, millions of chechen, tartars, uzbeks, siberians, and other "inferior" races died.
Thankfulnes is not a virue of greats, bigs and f***!


Uh, I thought the topic was russian troops in Chechnya. Clearly you must have posted in the wrong thread... ;)

[RomanS]

Albanian

Did I EVER HIJACK YOUR THREAD? ? ?

why are you posting this bull**** in mine?
If you have nothing positive to add to the subject related to " CHECHNYA-SPETSNAZ"

keep on walking pal!

[hist2004]

PermskiiOMON-

Great photos, question for you-Do you have photos of VDV(Airborne) personnel operating in Chechnya? The last
accounts I read were that at least 3,000 desantniki were operating there. Please correct if my numbers are off.

Regards & Thanks,
Hist2004

[ALBANIAN]

Albanian

Did I EVER HIJACK YOUR THREAD? ? ?

why are you posting this bull**** in mine?
If you have nothing positive to add to the subject related to " CHECHNYA-SPETSNAZ"

keep on walking pal!

Because the first moment I posted the first thread, all serb and russians of the forum, attacked me "welcome jihad, terrorist, islamic" .
However I'm Christian, and fought for 8 years the terrorism!
Insted to think, what a good chance to talk, to discuss on our postions, you attacked and insulted me.

[RATKO]

LIAR!!! You go to every tread abouth Serbs or Russians and spread hate and lies

[Hate mail]

Uh, I thought the topic was russian troops in Chechnya. Clearly you must have posted in the wrong thread... ;)

No, he was "posted" in the wrong century.

[ALBANIAN]

LIAR!!! You go to every tread abouth Serbs or Russians and spread hate and lies
itìs true ratko!
I am a firearms giornalist, firearm trader and dealer (civil market) interessed on story and I'm not here to atack someone.
It's tipically slav attitude, ten against one, you attack first and without reason, and cry cause you are badly tretated. i thought you are a gentleman, and you are pissing me around.

[RATKO]

First you were ex uck fighter than policeman and now you are a journalist
WOW what a story Whats next? MISS ALBANIA 2004???

[ALBANIAN]

spetnazi in chechenya


http://i.timeinc.net/time/daily/special/photo/grozny/10.jpg

http://i.timeinc.net/time/daily/special/photo/grozny/8.jpg
http://i.timeinc.net/time/daily/special/photo/grozny/4.jpg



as one russian said in this forum, brought up to the stone age.

http://www.hro.org/editions/karta/nr22-23/foto/grozny.jpg

http://www.tet68.net/grozny/images/grozny_square_after.jpg

http://www.nl12.nl/images/nl12/russia/foto022b.jpg

http://www.hrvc.net/imgs/grozny1.jpg

[Marmot1]

First you were ex uck fighter than policeman and now you are a journalist
WOW what a story Whats next? MISS ALBANIA 2004???

Miss Albania photo was already posted... ;) (In other topic)

[ALBANIAN]

http://www.politrix.org/foia/unsorted/putin-bomb5.htm


24 November 2000.

John Sweeney works for The Observer newspaper and has visited Chechnya twice this year. He has won an Emmy and a British Journalist of the Year. E-mail: john.sweeney@observer.co.uk

This report was written for Cryptome. Responses, critiques and additional evidence welcomed, especially from Russia and Chechnya: anonymous contributions invited. Send-to information at cryptome.org.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cryptome
November 24, 2000

THE FIFTH BOMB:
DID PUTIN’S SECRET POLICE
BOMB MOSCOW IN A
DEADLY BLACK OPERATION?
John Sweeney on the evidence that the old KGB
deliberately planted bombs in Moscow and
blamed them on Chechen terrorists.




The critical evidence are these photographs of a detonator.
The photographs of a detonator, taken by a Russian bomb squad, and other fresh evidence point to a plot carried out by the FSB working to assist their old spymaster, Vladimir Putin, in his rise to control the world’s number two superpower and its nuclear arsenal.

http://www.politrix.org/foia/unsorted/v_b0006.jpg



The secret policeman stood on the edge of a field of rubble and burnt wreckage, the ruins of what had been only the night before a block of flats.

He looked Central Casting’s idea of a KGB operative, sporting a cowpat hairdo, a cheap black raincoat, black tie, lean, tall, clean shaven, saturnine. They call the KGB the FSB these days, a new name for the Soviet state’s old organ of terror.

There had been two bombs in Moscow in four days. The first bomb exploded just after midnight at a block of flats at Guryanov Street. It killed 92 Muscovites sleeping in their beds in the early morning of 9th September, 1999. Several bodies were rocketed into the surrounding streets. By daybreak people could see the sad detritus of the atrocity: children’s clothes, a sofa hanging off a ledge in what had been someone’s living room, open to the sky, books, pictures scattered far and wide. Broken glass crackled underfoot in all the surrounding streets. The edge of fear in Moscow was tangible.

Four days later the second bomb blew up a similar block of flats at Kashirskoye Highway at five in the morning. The wounded, shocked, painted in dust, as semi-naked as when they went to sleep, a night and a lifetime ago, were carried off in stretchers. The most haunting image was of a man quite blackened by soot from a fire, crawling on his hands and knees through the wreckage: more beast than man. He survived. 130 other residents in the block of flats - men, women, children - did not.

Enter the secret policeman. He walked up to the TV cameras and presented to the compound eye of lenses a black and white e-fit picture. The e-fit depicted a Chechen man, with a fleshy face, almost Buddha-like in its plumpness, swarthy skin and tinted spectacles. This was the Chechen terrorist the authorities were blaming for the bomb. He was using the name of Mukhit Laipanov, who had recently rented ground floor space in the two apartment blocks devastated by the bombs. The real Laipanov died in a car crash earlier in 1999. The authorities were very quick to pin the blame on a group of Chechen trained terrorists. It was the Chechens who did it - that was the instant effect of the secret policeman’s e-fit. It was posted up all around the bus stops of Moscow. The Russian authorities have yet to produce a single solid piece of evidence to support their theory that Chechen terrorists blew up Moscow. No-one has been tried, no chain of evidence explained. A few men have been arrested, but none of the alleged ‘ring-leaders’. Three days after the second bomb, the bulldozers moved in, obliterating the sites and also destroying evidence against the bombers.

Two more bombs had exploded in cities in southern Russia. The four bombs together killed more than 300 people in less than two weeks.

There was a fifth bomb. This one didn’t go off. But the fifth bomb - proved by photographs of its detonator shown above - provides hard evidence that challenges the official ‘Chechen version’ of the Moscow bomb outrages. The fifth bomb points the other way: that the KGB-FSB bombed Moscow deliberately to blacken the name of the Chechens as a pretext for the second Chechen war.

The photographs of a detonator, taken by a Russian bomb squad, and other fresh evidence point to a plot carried out by the FSB working to assist their old spymaster, Vladimir Putin, in his rise to control the world’s number two superpower and its nuclear arsenal.

When the two Moscow bombs went off, Putin had just been appointed prime minister by President Yeltsin. With no public track record, the former secret policeman was widely mocked as a political nobody, a cold, faceless Kremlin insider who had spent 16 years in the KGB and had emerged as the chief of its successor, the FSB. Boris Kagarlitsky is a seasoned Kremlin watcher in Moscow: ‘You cannot turn a bureaucrat into a glamorous person. He is as grey as he used to be. There is a propaganda machine which works but that is exactly the weakness of Putin, because as a politician he is a nobody. To be a politician you need some kind of past.’

Matt Ivens, editor of the Moscow Times, thought the same: ‘Yeltsin had been through a couple of prime ministers and each time he dropped them he made it clear that it had something to do with elections.

By the end he's picking Vladimir Putin. No one has ever heard of Putin, except very careful watchers of politics or people from St. Petersberg. He's announcing "this is my successor, this is a man who can run the country" and there is widespread ridicule. All the newspapers in town including ours said, there's no way this guy could win an election, unless something really extraordinary is going to happen.’

The Moscow bombs were the extraordinary thing.

Putin struck out in the immediate aftermath of the bombs: ‘Those that have done this don't deserve to be called animals. They are worse … they are mad beasts and they should be treated as such.’

His poll ratings soared, and he struck again: ‘we will waste them. Even when they are on the bog.’ This was pure gangsterese, but it went down a treat with the Russian public. Putin was working with the grain of Russian racism. For centuries, the Muslim renegades from the savage rocks of the Caucases have been the folk devils of Russia. The nineteenth century poet Lermontov wrote a lullaby which has stuck in the Russian mind:

‘The Terek streams over boulders,
the murky waves splash;
a wicked Chechen crawls on to the bank
and sharpens his kinzhal;

But your father is an old warrior
forged in battle;

sleep my darling, be calm,
sing lullaby.’

The Chechens had humiliated the might of Russia in the first Chechen War, which Yeltsin had started in a drunken rage in 1994. They had kidnapped and killed mnay Russian soldiers, sometimes in a bloody and disgusting fashion.

The Islamic terror

Now it was the turn of the old guard, the Russian military and the FSB, to get their own back. And the Chechens were wasted, Grozny mulched to rubble, again, their economy annihilated, their ecology destroyed, their men shot and tortured and dumped in pits - to this day.

The tanks started to roll, and the war in Chechnya which has seen a Russian victory at the expense of thousands of civilian lives, began.

Putin’s brisk, savage reaction to the Moscow bombs made him a Russian superstar. The Chechens lost everything they had gained from the first war. One Chechen view is this: ‘if we had wanted to bomb Moscow, we would have blown up the Kremlin or a nuclear power station. Why should we blow up a couple of blocks of flats?’ Putin’s tough guy stance saw his opinion poll ratings rocket from close to zero to 70 per cent. Hugely popular, he was anointed President of the Russian Federation by Boris Yeltsin on New’s Year Eve. Sick, drunk, a joke but not a funny one, Yeltsin bowed out, escaping a fraud and money-laundering investigation by the Swiss Chief Prosecutor which was getting very close to his ‘family’ in the Kremlin.

Earlier in 1999 Special Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov had been hot on Yeltsin's case. He had received damning evidence from the Swiss investigators, evidence that put Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatiana, directly in the frame. Then he got a phone call. ‘We’ve got you on tape. Resign, or you’re finished.’

Skuratov refused to be blackmailed – and then Russia's TV millions saw him being entertained by two young prostitutes. They saw their Special Prosecutor lying on his back, naked, one of the woman on top of him, her head bobbing up and down. It was a classic dirty trick.

And the man responsible? Skuratov said: ‘As head of the FSB, Putin was one of those who fought against me, who compromised me, who plotted to get me off the case.’

The shaming of Skuratov finished off the Special Prosecutor, but not the case. By August 1999, the evidence against Yeltsin and his family was growing. It centred around an expensive refurbishment of the Kremlin, the central allegation being that a Swiss businessman of Albanian origin had supplied credit cards to members of Yeltsin’s circle in return for the contract. Worse, the evidence was in Swiss, not Russian, hands. Yeltsin’s popularity rating was hitting 2 per cent. At that point he promoted his spy chief, Putin, and made him prime minister.

At the same time Russian TV showing a video of clip of Chechen guerrillas purportedly torturing and killing Russian soldiers. The worst clip shows a knife being put to the neck of a shaven-headed white man. Then his artery is severed and one can see his blood drain from his face in close-up. The next shot is of the man lying ****e on the ground, to all intents and purposes a corpse. There is no way of telling whether the victim was a Russian soldier and the killers Chechen, no supporting evidence. Nevertheless, this and other clips were shown on Russian TV repeatedly - as if someone in authority was minded to soften Russian public opinion against the Chechens. And this happened before the bomb outrages.

The first came in the southern city of Buinaksk, killing 62 in September 4th, 1999. Then came the two bombs in Moscow, then a fourth that killed 17 in the southern city of Volgodonsk on September 16th.

The Russian government’s case that Chechen terrorists or Chechen-backed terrorists bombed Moscow and the two towns in southern Russia was spelt out by Vladimir Kozlov, head of the FSB’s anti-terrorism department, in a Moscow press conference a year after the outrages. Kozlov said that the terrorists were members of a radical Islamic sect, led by one Achemez Gochiyayev, who was paid $500,000 by the feared Chechen warlord Khattab. He recruited Yusuf Krymshamkhalov and Denis Saitakov to deliver the Moscow blasts. None of these men have been arrested. But two other men have been: Taukan Frantsuzov and Ruslan Magayayev. The evidence against them, when or if it comes before the courts, is keenly awaited.

The terrorists were trained in Chechnya, then dispatched to neighbouring North Caucasian republics, such as Karachayevo-Cherkassia, with tons of explosives, said the FSB. There, they rented trucks and smuggled the explosives to Moscow, usually camouflaged as sugar, potatoes or some other produce. Most of the bombs were made of a mixture of potassium nitrate and aluminium powder, with Casio watches used as timers, according to Kozlov. FSB detectives say they also found 500 kilograms of this mixture near the Chechen city of Urus-Martan in December, 1999, citing this as proof that those responsible for the attacks were not only trained in Khattab’s camps in Chechnya, but also obtained explosives there.

Common sense says it would be madness for a group of Chechens to smuggle explosives all the way from Urus-Martan to Moscow. Since the first Chechen war, Chechens are routinely singled out for harrassment by Russian police, vehicles stopped and searched, identity papers demanded. Besides, there has long been a strong Chechen mafia in Moscow, very capable of getting its own hands on arms or explosives locally. In Russia, you can bribe your way into a nuclear rocket silo or buy the list of the lost sailors of the doomed submarine, the Kursk. The ‘Chechen terrorists’ would have been risking a great deal by hauling their explosives roughly 1,000 miles to Moscow, when they could have bought them locally.

Six of the suspects, including those for the bombs in southern Russia, have been killed in fighting with federal forces in southern Russia. Dead men don’t tell tales. Much of the evidence presented at the FSB news conference was circumstantial.

But the FSB’s official version of the bomb outrages starts to fall apart when you examine the case of the fifth bomb. The story of its discovery, defusal and denial casts huge doubts on the Kremlin’s line.

Around 9pm at night on 22 September in the provincial city of Ryazan, 100 miles south east of Moscow, Vladimir Vasiliev, an engineer coming home for the night noticed three strangers acting suspiciously by the basement of his block of flats at 14/16 Novosyolov Street, literally New Settlers Street. Vasiliev said: ‘A white was parked outside the entrance, with the boot towards the entrance. In the car were two men, young men, also young, about 20 or 25 years old.’

Vasiliev noticed that the last two digits of the car number plate had been stuck on with paper, showing 62, the Ryazan regional code. Underneath the paper was the true plate number, giving a Moscow code. Vasiliev, puzzled, decided to call the police. ‘As we were waiting for the lift and it was empty, one of the young guys got out of the car and the girl asked: "have you done everything?" "Yes." "OK, let’s go." And they got into the car and quite quickly left.’

Vasiliev observed the three in the car with the mismatched plates. ‘I remember the driver sat at the wheel, quite thin, with a moustache, and the other man was heavier. The girl had blond hair, cut short, wearing sports clothes and a leather jacket. They were Russian, absolutely, not Asiatic.’

The police arrived. Inspector Andrei Chernyshev from the local police was the first to enter the basement. He said: ‘we had a signal from a man on duty. It was about 10 in the evening. There were some strangers who were seen leaving the basement from the Building 14/16 at Novosyolovo Street. We were met by the girl who stood by the building. She told us about the men who came out from the basement and left with the car with a licence number which was covered with paper. I went down to the basement. This block of flats had a very deep basement which was completely covered with water. We could see sacks of sugar and in them some electronic device, a few wires and a clock. We were shocked. We ran out of the basement and I stayed on watch by the entrance and my officers went to evacuate the people.’

Grandmother Clara Stepanovna recalled that night: ‘the neighbours began to knock at the door and said: "get out fast, something’s been planted underneath us." We quickly grabbed what we could and leapt out. My daughter leaped out not dressed, without stockings, without tights, not anything, just flung a jacket on. The kids also dashed out not dressed. They held us away from the block of flats and started investigating. They didn’t give us permission to come near.’

Vasiliev said: ‘After we were standing in the square, my wife remembered that she hadn’t switched off the stove, so I went up to an MVD officer to tell him. We went up in the lift. He told me they had really had found a device.’ (MVD stands for Ministerstvo Vnutrennykh Del, the Interior Ministry.)

Yuri Tkachenko, head of the local bomb squad, went down into the basement. ‘For me it was a live bomb. I was in a combat situation,’ he said. He tested the three sugar sacks in the basement with his MO-2 portable gas analyser, and got a positive reading for Hexogen, the explosive used in the Moscow bombs.

The timer of the detonator was set for 5.30am, which would have killed many of the 250 tenants of the 13-storey block of flats.

The sacks were taken out of the basement at around 1.30 in the morning and driven away by the FSB. But the secret police left the detonator in the hands of the bomb squad. They photographed it later that day.

As the residents were finally allowed back into to their homes at seven in the morning, one of the policemen let Mrs Stepanovna see what was left. She said: ‘there was a bit left, and the policeman said: "there, that’s it. That’s the stuff that was meant to blow you up.’

The local police arrested two men that night, according to Boris Kagarlitsky, a member of the Russian Institute of Comparative Politics. ‘FSB officers were caught red-handed while planting the bomb. They were arrested by the police and they tried to save themselves by showing FSB identity cards.’

Then, headquarters of the FSB in Moscow intervened. The two men were quietly let go.

The next day, on September 24, the FSB in Moscow announced that there had never been a bomb, only a training exercise. There was no hexogen, only sugar. Pro-Kremlin newspapers reported that the Ryazan bomb squad had made a mistake when they detected hexogen. One newspaper commented that perhaps they hadn’t washed their tester, a remark to which Tkachenko the bomb disposal expert replied: ‘it wasn’t an enema. There are two sources of radiation in the tester. These people don’t know what they are talking about.

Alexander Sergeyev, head of the Ryazan regional FSB, said, when asked about the training exercise: ‘the decision wasn’t taken by our local FSB. If it was a training exercise, it was done for everyone to check the combat readiness of all the towns in Russia. Nobody told us it was a training exercise and we didn’t receive a call that it was over. For two days and nights, we didn’t receive any documents or order that it was finished.’

Officially, the Minister of Interior has forbidden the police and the FSB from talking about the bomb that never was. But few believe the Kremlin’s version that it was only a training exercise.

Vasiliev said: ‘I heard the official version on the radio, when the press secretary of the FSB announced that it was a training exercise. It felt extremely unpleasant. A lot of neighbours started to call me and say: "did you hear that?" I heard it, but I cannot believe it.’

The credibility of the FSB version of events hangs on the notion of a training exercise. Why use real hexogen and a real detonator in a dummy bomb? If was just a training exercise, why turn out the residents of the block of flats for a sleepless night? And why should the Ryazan bomb squad be so concerned about a dummy detonator that they took a photograph of it?

The concern of locals deepened when the newspaper Novaya Gazeta alleged that sacks of hexogen were found at a military base in Ryazan. The paper reported that a paratrooper on guards duty at a weapons warehouse outside the city discovered piles of sacks labelled sugar. He opened one of the bags and tried to use the white powder to sweeten his tea, only to recoil at the taste. An explosives expert called in to examine the bags declared that they contained hexogen.

Putin has declared: ‘there is nobody in the Russian special services capable of committing such a crime against our people. It is immoral even to consider such a possibility. In fact, this is nothing but an element of the information war against Russia.’

His problem is that the residents of the Ryazan block of flats, among others, do not believe his word or the word of the FSB on the matter.






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2000 John Sweeney.

No limits on reproduction or distribution. Credit John Sweeney; and Cryptome if you like but not required.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

25 November 2000

Thanks to Boyd:

For those paying attention, The St. Petersburg Times noted these very same 'oddities' over a year ago, which I duly posted on Free Republic. William Safire of the New York Times has mused along the same lines.

See also Jamie Dettmer's report in Insight Magazine, April 17, 2000:

http://www.insightmag.com/archive/200003246.shtml
[Excerpt:]

"But unease about the bombings has not been confined to Putin’s domestic political opponents. In January, U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin admitted to journalists that the evidence was inconclusive that the Chechens were to blame for the terrorist outrages. And in February even international investor George Soros cast doubt on the official Russian explanation of the bombings, saying he believed the Kremlin was involved. He pointed the finger at an erstwhile business colleague, Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a Kremlin insider close to former president Boris Yeltsin and to Putin.

The shifts and changes in the Kremlin story about the blasts have done nothing to dampen speculation, nor have the inconsistencies. The evidence the Kremlin and FSB have supplied to support their contention that Chechen militants were the culprits has been meager and contradictory."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ALBANIAN]

LIAR!!! You go to every tread abouth Serbs or Russians and spread hate and lies
itìs true ratko!
I am a firearms giornalist, firearm trader and dealer (civil market) interessed on story and I'm not here to atack someone.
It's tipically slav attitude, ten against one, you attack first and without reason, and cry cause you are badly tretated. i thought you are a gentleman, and you are pissing me around.


www.armimagazine.it





http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/img1.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/img2.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/img3.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/img4.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/img5.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/img6.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/img7.jpg




other

http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/a1.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/a2.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/a3.jpg
http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/a4.jpg

[RomanS]

I think this ALBANIAN guy is
EYE SPY or ariweiner

All i can say is, your are up to no good, and your reputation here might go down soon. So try to keep civil

[ALBANIAN]

i think you are a stupid, unable to give arguments

[ALBANIAN]

First you were ex uck fighter than policeman and now you are a journalist
WOW what a story Whats next? MISS ALBANIA 2004???the articles are for you.
More tha 250 in albanian, US and italian journals.
Please for the sake of God, beleive me only once, cause I suffer so much If you don't beleive.
Be seriuos Ratko.
In my family we got in troubles cause we said the truth and what we think.
Regards.

[mustamato]

I think this ALBANIAN guy is
EYE SPY or ariweiner

All i can say is, your are up to no good, and your reputation here might go down soon. So try to keep civil

:roll:

Look at the post above your own, the information he is providing is as useful
as yours, or well probably even more useful, because a Google gives 27,200
hits on Spetsnaz, but doesn´t turn out **** about Albanian CT-police.

[RomanS]

what interests me is your accent

I looked at your other posts in non-Russia-Chechnya-Spetsnaz-AK-Serb-Ugoslav conversations, and you seem to clearly speak perfect Americanized English.
But in the Russian topics you suddenly speak like ****!

Interesting indeed

[ibstolidude]

EVERYONE better knock this **** off before we start deleting EVERY single post some of you make.

Use the PM button for your battles!

Start a thread that goes
"Hey Flame warriors enter here" then
LEAVE THE OTHER THREADS ALONE,

unless you are on a "get banned" quest.

[RomanS]

Thank you ibstolidude, I appreciate the attention here because everything was going good untill this fruit showed up

[ibstolidude]

Thank you ibstolidude, I appreciate the attention here because everything was going good untill this fruit showed up
When he shows up (as with a few others) I suggest people report the posts and ignore them. They will be dealt with.

I HATE seeing good threads resort to this kinda dribble, especially if they are heated debate and passionate disagreements. Nothing wrong with a little healthy anger and debate, but when it spews all over all the threads and the posters lack control.... well see above!

Thanks all.

[RomanS]

Some of you guys expressed interest about more information on SPHERA helmet.

I took some photos for you last night, and made a in depth view of the helmet here.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=204015#204015

Enjoy the best Spetsnaz helmet on the market hehehehe

http://www.gunsnet.net/album/data//500/6673IMG_3834.jpg

[ibstolidude]

Please PM me if there is another insurgency from the land of the United Union of Flambania-istan-bodia-way-land. Counter Insurgencies are only effective if dealt with promptly.

I attempted to delete several of the more flagrant posts so the thread may continue.

[ALBANIAN]

Some of you guys expressed interest about more information on SPHERA helmet.

I took some photos for you last night, and made a in depth view of the helmet here.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=204015#204015

Enjoy the best Spetsnaz helmet on the market hehehehe

http://www.gunsnet.net/album/data//500/6673IMG_3834.jpg
I've used helmets bought in germany .
Do you think this is russian? As form it seems to be made in russia. This saved lot of lifes too, but bloody hell, it was heaaaaavy!

http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/ren3.JPG

[Undo]

Some of you guys expressed interest about more information on SPHERA helmet.

I took some photos for you last night, and made a in depth view of the helmet here.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=204015#204015

Enjoy the best Spetsnaz helmet on the market hehehehe

http://www.gunsnet.net/album/data//500/6673IMG_3834.jpg
I've used helmets bought in germany .
Do you think this is russian? As form it seems to be made in russia. This saved lot of lifes too, but bloody hell, it was heaaaaavy!

http://digilander.libero.it/albanianfirearms/ren3.JPG

I have seen many european police units with the helmet in your image. I believe it is a German helmet. To my knowledge Russia only has 2 major helmets currently being issued to MD and MVD troops, those being Sphera and and the titanium one that looks like a motorcycle helmet. There are several other minor types, and still some of the old steel ones running around with MRDs, but these are the major ones. I don't think the one in your image is Russian.

[ALBANIAN]

I have seen in diferent shows helmets produced by splav and another firm that now I don't remember.
They are simil, and seems god quality. Never used russian kevlar, but all russian military prodcuts I've seen are Ok.