Did Putin plant the holiday jet bomb that killed 224 Russians? Ex-KGB agent claims...

Daily Mail ^ | 25 December 2015 | Andrew Malone

[annalex]

Did Putin plant the holiday jet bomb that killed 224 Russians? Ex-KGB agent claims this dossier proves the Kremlin orchestrated the atrocity to justify waging war on Syria

By ANDREW MALONE FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 16:51 EST, 25 December 2015 | UPDATED: 07:53 EST, 26 December 2015

...One man certainly believes so: Boris Karpichkov, a former spy with the KGB (later renamed the FSB) who now lives under a new identity with his wife and family at a secret location in England after fleeing here in fear for his life. His sensational claim at first seems unbelievable. For he maintains it was the Kremlin, not ISIS, that deliberately blew the plane out of the sky. And he says Putin cynically authorised the tragedy not only to obtain worldwide sympathy at a time when Russia was being treated as a pariah because of its aggression towards Ukraine, but also to gain support for its ostensible belligerence against ISIS, which Putin would use as a cover to attack rebel groups in Syria who were sworn enemies of his ally President al-Assad.

[More at source.]

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Occam’s razor tells me it was Islamists, not Putin

Occam's Razor points you back to the Russians, who are well known for these sorts of "false flag" terrorist attacks all throughout their history; ISIS didn't even know how the plane was taken down when they took credit for it, as the article notes.

[Zhang Fei]

I would not be surprised at a lot of things Putin would do but he seems to actually love Russia. I just don’t think he would kill that many of his countrymen for minimal profit if any at all.

Has any Russian leader actually hated Russia? Hasn't stopped them from killing any number of Russians, and certainly way more Russians than Putin. The issue has always been their attitude that "L'etat c'est moi". Two hundred dead Russians is a speck compared to his predecessors, especially for raison d'etat in the Russian tradition.

[doug6352]

Putin is certainly capable of doing something like that, but there is no evidence I know of that he did it, and the proposed motive for acting seems weak to me.

In contrast, for the September 1999 Russian apartment bombings his FSB men were caught in the act in Ryazan, and there was a compelling motive at the time to stage an atrocity and blame it on the Chechens.

It seems to me that even a murderous rat like Putin is sometimes falsely accused.

[Secret Agent Man]

The great thing about false flags is that you can do them and it justmsounds so ridiculous. So its perfect cover.

Remember the Maine.

[jwalsh07]

I wouldn’t put it past him but based on the spate of attacks I would have to bet on the religion of Peace.

[Organic Panic]

Why won’t people take ISIS for their word? They claim credit for blowing up the airliner and we’re suppose to believe Putin placed the bomb? ISIS says they are sending their fighters in the Europe and the USA with refugees and we aren’t suppose to believe it?

[annalex]

the proposed motive for acting seems weak to me

How is it weak? Both diplomatic and economic isolation are serious problems for the Russian Federation, and covert operations is what a KGB mind immediately runs to.

[annalex]

Because (you read the article, right?) ISIS’s taking of responsibility looked too vague, whereas we now have a ranking KGB officer testifying with a detailed version of events involving KGB.

I said nothing about fighters in Europe and I do not advocate generally ignoring what ISIS says.

[Zhang Fei]

Putin is certainly capable of doing something like that, but there is no evidence I know of that he did it, and the proposed motive for acting seems weak to me.

The motive may be stronger than you think. Russia is the Saudi Arabia of the north. It relies on commodity exports for sustenance, and sanctions are starting to bite at a time when commodity prices are at decade-long lows. Putin wants to get sanctions lifted or at least not tightened because of his intervention in Syria. So he stages a false flag incident.

At the same time, I'd have to agree that it is at least plausible that the bomb could have been planted by Islamists, given that the plane took off from an Egyptian airport. And Islamists have plenty of reason to attack Egypt's tourism revenues, given the way the leadership of Egypt's Brotherhood was sentenced to death by the country's military honcho.

However, the fact that it's a Russian plane means Russian agents have even more access than Egyptian airport personnel, so never say never. The movies about the CIA assassinating agents or people who reveal important secrets are true, but only if you superimpose the initials FSB or KGB over CIA. Snowden's continued existence out in the open in Russia, despite have blown the covers of a huge number of the CIA's overseas assets, as well as espionage methods, has pretty blown apart any Hollywood-inspired fantasies about CIA assassinations in today's world.

[usurper]

This is based on the premise that Putin needed to justify his actions is Syria.

To who? The Russian people love him, the UN will not do anything, he does not care a whit NGOs or Obama think.

The premise makes no sense.

[John Valentine]

Nope, I disagree wholeheartedly. You are confusing language and communications issues with “not knowing how the plane was taken down”.

And sure, false flag attacks are not unknown but that is irrelevant to this unless you have evidence, not just speculation. Occam’s Razor is meant to cut down on speculation not support it.

[John Valentine]

The premise makes no sense.

Agreed. And since when is a premise the only thing we need to complete an argument, anyway? And a premise is ALL that underlies this, not one shred of evidence.

[Zhang Fei]

Why won’t people take ISIS for their word? They claim credit for blowing up the airliner and we’re suppose to believe Putin placed the bomb?

They also took credit for San Bernardino even though nobody at ISIS* wanted to have anything to do with the couple because they were feared to be American spies. Heck, they took credit for forest fires and any number of natural disasters, because it's good for fund-raising and recruitment. People who contribute to ISIS (and/or al Qaeda) want results measured in dead infidels or significant infidel-owned property damage.

* And we are fortunate that ISIS did not get involved. The Paris attacks were much better-planned and killed 10x as many people.

[duckln]

Putin by his deeds and what he says his goals are, may well be written down in history 'the greatest leader of our time'.

He says Christians are being killed throughout the world and at great risk to Russia is hammering away at the Islamist caliphate. Find something to chew about on that statement.

I find it hard to believe a FR of 15+ years would believe all the BS western propaganda that still going on despite the progress democratic Russia has made in the last 30 years.

[Mastador1]

I wonder if Putin had his people get together with Bush’s people, since you know they were so successful with that Twin Towers thing. You know those poor terrorists have just got to be tearing their beards out over the lack of credit they get.

[PhilDragoo]

In Blowing Up Russia (2006) by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky the authors make a compelling case for former KGB placing explosives to create new phase of Chechen war and to install Putin. Litvinenko was dying of polonium poisoning during the final writing and publication.

[annalex]

based on the premise that Putin needed to justify his actions is Syria

Did you read the article?

he says Putin cynically authorised the tragedy not only to obtain worldwide sympathy at a time when Russia was being treated as a pariah because of its aggression towards Ukraine, but also to gain support for its ostensible belligerence against ISIS

[...]

The aim was to get ‘at least silent international approval’ for massive military operations against Assad’s enemies under the guise of a campaign against the IS terrorists blamed for bombing the Russian passenger jet; and to bolster Russia’s multi-billion-pound weapons business with the Middle East.

So,

• Relieve or end diplomatic isolation
• Perpetuate status-quo in Ukraine
• Replace dwindling oil revenues with arms sales

[ETL]

Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB [Power]
Alexander Litvinenko & Yuri Felshtinsky

This book, co-authored by Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of the notorious 2006 London polonium poisoning, attempts to demonstrate that modern Russia's most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin's terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services. It was they who unleashed the first and second Chechen wars, in order to divert Russia away from the path of democracy and towards dictatorship, militarism, and chauvinism.

The authors alleged that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky wrote that the bombings were a false flag operation intended to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power.

Originally published in 2002
(223 pages)

http://www.libertypublishinghouse.com/Blowing_up_Russia_E.aspx

*******************************************************************************

Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006

The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
____________________________________________

"Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB's alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.

He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/237045/long-awaited-investigation-alexander-v-litvinenkos-arnold-ahlert

*********************************************************

Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium [poisoned by Putin?...case now concluding]
BBC - Magazine ^ | July 28, 2015

"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."

"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."

Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.

Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.

But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."

It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."

The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.

"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."

His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."

The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...

*********************************************************

BBC, 27 July 2015

Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'

"UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.

Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.

Mr Litvinenko's family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33674469

[ETL]

From the Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2008:

Dear President Medvedev
By TATYANA MOROZOV and ALYONA MOROZOV

"In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121209647875130625.html
_______________________________________________________

Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth

In 1999, a series of apartment bombings shook Russia and propelled the country headlong into the Second Chechen War. Nearly nine years after the attacks, which claimed 292 lives, many Russians remain unconvinced by the official version of events, which holds that Chechen separatists were responsible.

Two sisters, who lost their mother in the attack, have written an open letter to President Dmitri Medvedev, urging him to mount a fully open, independent investigation. The sisters, Tatyana and Alyona Morozov, currently reside in Missouri. Their appeal (below) was published in the Wall Street Journal newspaper on May 30th.

-

Dear President Medvedev

In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks.

Although these crimes were blamed on Chechen terrorists and used to justify the resumption of a full-scale war against Chechnya later that month, there are numerous indications that Russian security services may have been involved. There is also clear evidence of a cover-up by the authorities. We do not consider this case solved.

Let us remind you of some of the facts:

* On September 23, 1999, police arrested three Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had planted a detonator and RDX - the same explosive used in the earlier bombings - in the basement of a residential building in the city of Ryazan. The FSB explained the agent's activities as a "training exercise," claiming the sacks of explosives actually contained only sugar. The investigation was dropped and all evidence classified "top secret."

* At about the same time, a Russian soldier discovered RDX in sacks labeled as "sugar" at his army base near Ryazan. The incident was never investigated and the evidence classified.

* On September 13, 1999, the Speaker of the Duma, Gennady Seleznev, announced that an apartment house in Volgodonsk had been blown up - three days before the attack actually occurred.

* Mark Blumenfeld, the property manager of our house on Guryanova Street in Moscow that was blown up, told our lawyer and several journalists that FSB agents had "talked him into" changing his testimony. The agents showed him a photo of Achemez Gochiyayev, a Chechen he had never seen before, and under pressure he "identified" him as the man who had rented storage space in the basement.

* The composite sketch based on Mr. Blumenfeld's initial description of what the real suspect looked like disappeared from the police file and was replaced with the photograph of Mr. Gochiyaev. Meanwhile, our attorney Mikhail Trepashkin, himself a former KGB agent, told reporters that he had recognized FSB agent Vladimir Romanovich from the police sketch. Romanovich was subsequently killed in Cyprus in a hit and run incident that was never solved.

* In November 2003, on the eve of the trial of two Chechens later convicted for transporting the explosives used in the Moscow bombings, Mr. Trepashkin was arrested after a gun had been planted in his car. This prevented him from submitting Mr. Blumenfeld's statement to court that the FSB agents had pressured him to give false evidence. The trial of the two Chechens was not convincing to us or the world as it was held behind closed doors and human rights groups noted numerous violations of due process. Mr. Blumenfeld's statement and the replacement of the police sketch with the photo of Mr. Gochiyayev was never reviewed by a Russian court.

* Four people investigating the FSB's possible involvement in the bombings were assassinated. Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead in Moscow in April 2003 and his colleague Yuri Schekochihin died of apparent poisoning three months later. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in October 2006 in her Moscow apartment block and a month later, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died of poisoning in London.

Many Russians have come to the conclusion that the bombings may have been the work of Russian security services. As for our family, our initial trust in the official version of a "Chechen trail" is long gone. We have come to believe that our mother and neighbors were sacrificed for a political end: To justify the war in Chechnya and help Vladimir Putin become president the following year. Only an objective investigation could make us change this view.

Mr. President, we are writing this open letter because we would like to believe that your ascent to the presidency will end this dark period in Russian history. You were not involved.

We realize that you owe the previous regime a debt of loyalty and gratitude. But the powers of the state were entrusted to you not to protect possible murderers. You are now in control of Russia and your position imposes a higher responsibility. Before history, the people and the memory of innocent victims, you have an obligation to find and tell the truth about these crimes.

Related articles:

* A Record Harvest of Spies

* An Open Letter to the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia

* Opposition Activist Revealed as FSB Agent

* Beslan Rights Group Charged With Extremism

* Russian Immigration Agency Knew Nothing About Morar's Deportation

* Investigative Journalist Barred From Returning to Moscow

* Kasparov on His FSB Interrogation

Source: Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth:
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2008/05/31/russian-terror-victims-ask-for-truth/

[ETL]

From AP via FoxNews.com...

Last Living Beslan School Attacker Sentenced to Life in Prison
May 28, 2006

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia - AP
A southern Russian court on Friday sentenced the sole surviving Beslan school attacker to life in prison, capping a yearlong trial that survivors and victims' relatives say has left the most essential questions about the tragedy unanswered.

They demand to know just who bore the most responsibility: Nur-Pashi Kulayev and his 31 fellow militants, or the officials whose negligence or even alleged complicity allowed them to seize hundreds of children and parents on the first day of school in September 2004.

Countrywatch: Russia

"I did not go to court to become convinced of Kulayev's guilt, but to reconstruct all the circumstances of the terrorist attack and find the truth," said Aneta Gadiyeva, whose daughter was killed. "But I did not learn anything new and did not get any answers." ..."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197093,00.html