Many people have been allegedly killed in connection with the Russian apartment bombings.
The Moscow theater hostage crisis was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater in Moscow by Chechen terrorists on 23 October 2002, resulting in the taking of 912 hostages. The attackers, led by Movsar Barayev, claimed allegiance to the Islamist separatist movement in Chechnya. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The crisis was resolved when Russian security services released sleeping gas into the building, and subsequently stormed it, killing all 40 hostage takers. 132 hostages died, largely due to the effects of the gas.
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.
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian investigative journalist who reported on political and social events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999–2005).
Mikhail Ivanovich Trepashkin is a Russian attorney and former Federal Security Service (FSB) colonel who was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999 that followed the Dagestan war and were one of the causes of the Second Chechen War. During his investigation, he was arrested by the FSB and sentenced to four years' imprisonment for "revealing state secrets". His arrest has been criticized by a number of human rights organizations and he has been called a political prisoner.
Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov is a Russian film and TV director from Saint Petersburg.
On 7 October 2006, Russian journalist, writer and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow. She was known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and for criticism of Vladimir Putin. She authored several books about the Chechen wars, as well as Putin's Russia, and received several international awards for her work. Her murder, believed to be a contract killing, sparked a strong international reaction. Three Chechens were arrested for the murder, but were acquitted. The verdict was overturned by the Supreme Court of Russia and new trials were held. In total, six people were convicted of charges related to her death.
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised in tackling organised crime. A prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he advised British intelligence and coined the term "mafia state".
Yuri Petrovich Shchekochikhin was a Soviet and later Russian investigative journalist, writer, and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament. Shchekochikhin wrote and campaigned against the influence of organized crime and corruption. His last non-fiction book, Slaves of the KGB, was about people who worked as KGB informers.
Sergei Nikolayevich Yushenkov was a liberal Russian politician. He was assassinated on 17 April 2003, just hours after registering his political party to participate in the December 2003 parliamentary elections.
Alexander Litvinenko was an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and its predecessor, the KGB, until he left the service and fled the country in late 2000.
Terrorism in Russia has a long history starting from the time of the Russian Empire. Terrorism, in the modern sense, means violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating extreme fear.
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.
German Alexeyevich Ugryumov was a Soviet and Russian navy and security services official. During his childhood he lived in Chelyabinsk Oblast.
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.
The poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, alternatively known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12, and Kamera, was a covert research-and-development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the laboratory manufactured and tested poisons, and was reportedly reactivated by the Russian government in the late 1990s.
Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB is a book written by Alexander Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko about the life and death of her husband, former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned by the radioactive element polonium in London in November 2006.
Achemez Gochiyayev is a Russian citizen who was accused of organizing the Russian apartment bombings, a series of terrorist acts in 1999 that killed 307 people and led the country into the Second Chechen War. The five bombings took place during two weeks between September 4 and September 16, 1999, in Moscow, and the southern towns of Buynaksk and Volgodonsk. Gochiyayev has not been arrested or convicted and ostensibly remains a fugitive; he has not been seen since early March 2002.
Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov was a Russian human rights activist and politician. During the Soviet period he was a dissident and, after 1975, a political prisoner.