In September 1999, a series of explosions hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War. The handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.
Lubyanka is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the Border Guard Service, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by Aleksey Shchusev from 1940 to 1947. It was previously the national headquarters of the KGB. Soviet hammer and sickles can be seen on the building's facade.
Yuri Georgievich Felshtinsky is a Russian American historian. Felshtinsky has authored a number of books on Russian history, including The Bolsheviks and the Left SRs, Towards a History of Our Isolation, The Failure of the World Revolution, Blowing up Russia, and The Age of Assassins.
Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within is a book written by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky. The authors describe the Russian apartment bombings as a false flag operation that was guided by the Russian Federal Security Service to justify the Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power. The story was initially printed by Yuri Shchekochikhin in a special issue of Novaya Gazeta in August 2001 and published as a book in 2002. In Russia, the book was prohibited because it divulged state secrets, and it was included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. However, it was published in more than twenty other countries and translated into twenty languages.
Oleg Markovich Govorun is a Russian politician and since May 2012 the Minister of Regional Development. He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.
The Mikhailov Case refers to an espionage scandal surrounding the activities of the Center of Information Security (CIS) of FSB, whose employees were implicated in high treason after participating in a number of high-profile criminal cases. January 31, 2017 was arrested that the head of the 2nd department of the CIS Sergei Mikhailov (FSB) and his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev In the same case, the head of the department of investigation of computer incidents of Kaspersky Lab Ruslan Stoyanov and Georgy Fomchenkov were arrested. The men were convicted of giving information to American private sector researcher Kimberly Zenz, but Zenz herself was never charged, and her requests to testify for the defense were ignored.
Artpodgotovka, Russian for "Artillery - or art - preparation" and known in English as the Interregional Social Movement 'Artpodgotovka') is a Russian political organization of a left-wing nationalist character. Recognized as extremist, it was banned on the territory of the Russian Federation.
On April 16, 2018, the Russian government began blocking access to Telegram, an instant messaging service. The blocking led to interruptions in the operation of many third-party services, but practically did not affect the availability of Telegram in Russia. It was officially unblocked on June 19, 2020.
Ivan Valentinovich Golunov is a Russian investigative journalist and anti-corruption reporter currently working for the independent outlet Meduza.
Events in the year 2020 in the Russian Federation.
Mikhail Vladimirovich Svetov is a Russian politician and public figure, chairman of the civil society movement "Civil Society", political scientist, blogger, one of the main ideologists and popularizers of libertarianism in Russia, and the organizer of major rallies on various political and public topics. Svetov hosts his own YouTube channel and an online newspaper both entitled "SVTV".
The Insider is an independent online newspaper specializing in Russia related investigative journalism, fact-checking and political analytics. It was founded in 2013 by Roman Dobrokhotov, a Russian journalist and the owner of the newspaper. The newspaper is known for exposing fake news in Russian media. The editorial office of the website is located in Riga, Latvia. Andris Jansons is the editor-in-chief of the website.
The Popular Resistance Association is a Russian national anarchist political organization. Founded in 2016 by a number of former activists of People's Will, NBP, and other movements
The Nation and Freedom Committee is a Russian nationalist socio-political association whose purpose is to ensure the consolidated centralized participation of Russian nationalists in the general civil protest movement and to uphold the rights of the Russian population. KNU is the most active far-right protest organization in the Russian Federation, monthly featured in thematic reviews of human rights defenders who monitor the activities of ultra-right political movements in the Russian Federation. KNS is the core of the right wing of the Russian protest movement, in connection with which the organization's associates are regularly arrested during protests, pressure, less often - searches. Website, YouTube-channel, blog at livejournal.com of KNS were blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation at the request of the authorities. The blocking and removal of the channel on youtube was preceded by the removal of a video criticizing Putin's migration policy. KNS Facebook page was removed by the social network in connection with the propaganda of european nationalism, prohibited by the internal rules of the social network.
The Kansk affair or the affair of Kansk teens is an ongoing criminal case in the Russian city of Kansk where in June 2020 the FSB agents arrested three 14-year-old boys while they were putting up political leaflets, whom the authorities accused of being an anarchist terror cell. One of the pieces of evidence in the case is the boys' actions in the video game Minecraft, where they constructed a virtual FSB building that they were blowing up in the game. A Russian human rights organization, Memorial, characterized the case against the three Kansk teens as political persecution.
Redkollegia is an independent media award established by the Sreda Foundation headed by Boris Zimin to support free professional journalism in Russia. In 2015, after the Sreda Foundation was closed, charitable activities of Boris Zimin are carried out through the Zimin Foundation.
Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina, also known under the pen name Daria Platonova, was a Russian journalist, political scientist, and activist. She was the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, a supporter of Vladimir Putin and a far-right political philosopher, whose support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine she shared.
A series of Molotov cocktail arson attacks and shootings have taken place in Russian military commissariat registration and enlistment offices since the start of the country's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Other governmental buildings have also been attacked in multiple regions of Russia. Part of the Russian partisan and anti-war movements, the attacks were spurred by several factors, including the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine, the deployment of Russian conscripts to the front line, the start of spring conscription, and rumors about possible mobilization in the country, which were later found to be true. Commissariat offices recruit servicemen to the Russian Army and choose who is eligible and ineligible for service. The attacks are not a single coordinated campaign; behind them are a variety of people, from left-wing anarchists and scammers to far-right groups and assorted lone wolf actors.
On 8 October 2022, at 6:07 a.m., a fire broke out on the Crimean Bridge as a result of an explosion of a bomb loaded onto a truck, which occurred on the road bridge, on the westbound vehicle lanes running from Russia to Kerch in Russian-occupied Crimea. Two two-lane vehicular spans of the bridge collapsed into the water. Two adjacent eastbound lanes on a separate structure survived. The railway bridge was also significantly damaged by a railway tanker car that caught fire. Five people were killed, and the Investigative Committee of Russia launched an investigation.
