The History Bureau

Four bombs. Twelve days. Hundreds dead. What really happened in Russia in September 1999?

Helena speaks to BBC foreign correspondent Andrew Harding to revisit a story that has haunted him for decades. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Harding takes us inside a world of power struggles, inflation and a country on the brink. Then, in September 1999, just weeks after Vladimir Putin becomes Prime Minister, the apartment bombs...

Three sacks of white powder discovered in a basement – and a ticking timer set for dawn.

As fear grips the country and families sleep on the streets, a strange discovery in the city of Ryazan sparks a chain of events that challenges everything people thought they knew about the bombings. In Episode 2, Helena speaks to David Satter, a journalist who has spent years trying to make sense of two pivotal weeks in Russia’s history.

In Se...

What if the truth behind the bombs could be revealed - on a television show?

Following the events at Ryazan, journalists at Russia’s major television channel NTV prepare for a primetime broadcast: a confrontation between the residents of the building where the sacks of powder were found and the FSB officials who insist it was nothing more than a training exercise. With the Russian presidential election just days away, the TV show b...

Two men challenging the FSB’s story flee to London seeking safety, only to end up dead.

Years after the apartment bombings shook Russia a press conference is held in London, led by exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Once a kingmaker who helped propel Putin to power, Berezovsky now claims the bombs were an inside job. And in the room sits another man, Alexander Litvinenko, whose own investigation into the bombings will set him on a p...

A former KGB investigator steps forward, risking everything to get to the truth.

As Putin’s power grows, American journalist Scott Anderson returns to the story of the 1999 apartment bombings. Only one man will speak to him: Mikhail Trepashkin. Once KGB, then FSB, Trepashkin used to believe fiercely in the system he served. Now, drawn into the mystery surrounding the bombings, he follows the evidence into the shadows where police sk...

A trial of two suspected bombers seems to offer closure – but is this really case closed?

As Mikhael Trepashkin prepares to present evidence that might shed light on what really happened in 1999, he's thrown into prison. And as the verdict looms for two suspected bombers, so does an unsettling truth about how the Kremlin uses moments of crisis to tighten its grip. In this episode, Helena speaks to Steven Lee Myers, the former New Y...

Who bombed the four apartment buildings?

The reporters who covered this story look back with over 25 years of distance to answer a one question: who do they think bombed those four apartment buildings back in September 1999?  Was it the Chechen militants the government blamed? Or was it an FSB plot - to create a climate of fear so that one of their own - Vladimir Putin - could step in as the hard man the country needed - and becom...

Now that you’ve finished Putin and the Apartment Bombs, we’re bringing you a listening recommendation: Cautionary Tales. In this episode, Helena Merriman joins Cautionary Tales host Tim Harford to discuss the 1999 apartment bombs and how our understanding of the story – and the people at the centre of it – has changed over time.

If you’re in the UK, you can find more episodes of Cautionary Tales on BBC Sounds. If you’re outside the...