Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways is not supported by a postal carrying primate. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's supported by the generous donations of our listeners on Patreon.
Speaker 1: Visit patreon dot com slash thinking sideways to learn more
Speaker 1: and thanks Thinking Sideways. I don't you never know stories
Speaker 1: of things we simply don't know the answer to why.
Speaker 1: They're Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am Joe,
Speaker 1: joined as always by Devon and Steve, and this week
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about another kind of an international mystery,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you say more than kind of? Yeah, it's definitely
Speaker 1: an international mystery for us. I guess I mean either
Speaker 1: are people in this world that No, that's not it's
Speaker 1: still it's still crosses country lines no matter which way
Speaker 1: you slice it. Hey, it's international, yeah they do. Yuh,
Speaker 1: all right, this is it's got lots of murder intrigue.
Speaker 1: You guys are gonna love it. And we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about the death of Alexander Litvinenko. First off, I want
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to Rosie who suggested this mystery.
Speaker 1: Thanks Rosie. Um. And so let's talk about Alexander Lipmandienko.
Speaker 1: He was a journalist at the time of his death
Speaker 1: living in the UK. But before being a journalist, he
Speaker 1: was an FSB officer. That's a good question. The FSB
Speaker 1: stands for Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. That
Speaker 1: doesn't sound ominous. Yeah, they're the successor to the the KGB.
Speaker 1: And what did the KGB stand for? Oh, Christ, I
Speaker 1: don't remember, you don't remember. It's been a while, But
Speaker 1: reportedly the FSB is is not quite as brutal as
Speaker 1: a KGB. Not quite, but they're not quite boy scouts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Litvinenko was still with the FSB, and he and several
Speaker 1: other FSB officers publicly accused some of their higher ups
Speaker 1: in the organization of ordering the assassination of Rospirezovsky, who
Speaker 1: was a Russian tycoon. You've heard of those those famous oligarchs,
Speaker 1: you know, the one the ones who wound up owning
Speaker 1: everything in the nineties and they're super rich and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was unlike most of the other oligarchs, he didn't
Speaker 1: have any allies with the Russian government. He was actually
Speaker 1: kind of opposed to Yeltson and Boris Yeltson, who was
Speaker 1: in charge in the late nineties. Still, this is pretty
Speaker 1: Vladimir putin. That's interesting. Yeah, it's just yeah, that's always
Speaker 1: interesting to me when somebody who like is in power
Speaker 1: for a reason is like, but you know, screw those
Speaker 1: guys that are the reason I'm in power, to make
Speaker 1: it easier for me. Well, yeah, but he benefited from
Speaker 1: the situation. They weren't directly the reason he was in
Speaker 1: power as much as some other Yeah. Yeah. Oh but anyway,
Speaker 1: that back to Bezovsky. Uh, the assassination wasn't carried out,
Speaker 1: at least not at the time, though he did die
Speaker 1: in thirteen. He decided to move to Britain for health reasons,
Speaker 1: meaning he didn't want to get murdered. A lot of
Speaker 1: people were getting murdered in Russian around this time. A
Speaker 1: lot of people left the Untry at this time too,
Speaker 1: for that very same reason. Yeah. But in thirteen he
Speaker 1: was living, he was living in the UK. He was
Speaker 1: found dead in his home and there's somewhat suspicious circumstances,
Speaker 1: and he was he hanged himself in his bathroom. It
Speaker 1: kind of looked like a suicide anyway, and but he
Speaker 1: might actually have killed himself because his life had really
Speaker 1: taken a turn for the worst. He had been through
Speaker 1: a series of lawsuits, lost a huge amount of wealth,
Speaker 1: and so he'd gone from being mega rich to broke.
Speaker 1: He had also it was known that he was having
Speaker 1: depression issues. Yeah, he had much you know, a great
Speaker 1: amount of time prior to that. Yeah. Yeah, so he
Speaker 1: had depression issues anyway, and now he really had something
Speaker 1: to be depressed about. Yeah, he was selling his possessions,
Speaker 1: I understand, just to pay his legal bills. The corner
Speaker 1: at the time still refused to rule the death of
Speaker 1: suicide because, you know, because of who his enemies were.
Speaker 1: So even though physically the physical evidence kind of looked
Speaker 1: like suicide and he'd had a motive, but still, and
Speaker 1: so it's still an open case because they ruled it unknown.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah? They did. I don't. So this
Speaker 1: is one of those things that I just don't get
Speaker 1: because you know, it's just going to fuel the fires.
Speaker 1: Is I wish they would come up with a different term,
Speaker 1: which is death by this but with questions? Does that
Speaker 1: make sense? Yeah? I mean, you know, they could just
Speaker 1: say probably suicide, but I wouldn't guarantee. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: opinion put in there. I guess there's a problem. It's
Speaker 1: a box that gets ticked as to the cause of death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that the official terminology is open verdict, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: don't really want your corner's edit poral izing. No. But
Speaker 1: but the problem is is that it then what was
Speaker 1: the term that you just used again, Joe, Yes, open
Speaker 1: verdict means that people always construe that as unknown and
Speaker 1: all these things always get pushed into these cases. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about Berezovsky at all here in the
Speaker 1: grander scheme of the story. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: things that I notice about this, this corner, this process,
Speaker 1: the British corner always bothers me. Yeah, but Berezovsky is
Speaker 1: a bit of a footnote though. Yeah. But yeah, well okay,
Speaker 1: if you're a British coroner and you're listening, I mean,
Speaker 1: clean up your act all right or right? Associating email. Yeah,
Speaker 1: back to Alexander Litvinenko, Well, they were doing the episode
Speaker 1: about Yeah, that guy a little sidetrack there, So obviously
Speaker 1: he didn't stay with the FSB. I mean, after you
Speaker 1: accuse your employer government that kind of stuff here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: are numbered. Yeah, he he became a journalist instead and
Speaker 1: was critical of the government. He left Russia in the
Speaker 1: year two thousand with his family and was living in
Speaker 1: exile in the UK, working as a journalist. He wrote
Speaker 1: a couple of books. The one called Blowing Up Russia
Speaker 1: and the other one was Lubyanka Criminal Group, and they
Speaker 1: were critical. You know a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: people have said that the Russian government eventually devolved into
Speaker 1: into a gangster government. That's kind of a well known thing, yea,
Speaker 1: through the decades. Yeah, yeah, before the fall of the
Speaker 1: Soviet and they were a gangster government really, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know those ours they were kind of a gangster
Speaker 1: government and today they are so I don't know. I
Speaker 1: was just keeping my mouth shut because I like being alive,
Speaker 1: Mr Putin. That's a good point. Yeah, I like you, Ladimir.
Speaker 1: You're very sexy. Yeah, when you ride shirtless on that bear,
Speaker 1: just what I was thinking of. Yeah, we're we're hunting salmon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: back to Alexander. In November two thousand six, Litvinenko became
Speaker 1: suddenly ill in London and he was taken to a
Speaker 1: hospital where it was discovered that he had polonium to
Speaker 1: ten in his bloodstream. It sounds like a made up word, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but apparently it's a real deal. But it's a very
Speaker 1: rare radioactive isotope, which you're not gonna like, you know,
Speaker 1: finding your average drug store. Lit Vinenko was hospitalized for
Speaker 1: three weeks a little more or less, and then died
Speaker 1: of radiation poisoning. Not a pleasant way to go, No,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine you. So, so here are theories, and
Speaker 1: there's basically three possible ones unless you guys have other ones.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was an accident, um, Litvinenko was playing
Speaker 1: around with a little polonium and maybe he accidentally inhaled
Speaker 1: some or got him on You got the polonium slinky?
Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying, Yeah, something like that. So
Speaker 1: there's the accident. You guys have any thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: And it seems a bit unlikely. Yeah, it could have
Speaker 1: been suicide. He got his hands on some polonium and
Speaker 1: ingested it on purpose because Miss Mother Russia is so
Speaker 1: bad polonium candy. Yeah, I don't know where he got
Speaker 1: a drug story. I guess there's another possibility, which is
Speaker 1: murder boys deliberate poisoning by by the third party. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's a little bit of support for the theory
Speaker 1: because several of Litvineko's associates had been murdered quite a few, yeah,
Speaker 1: quite a few. Uh. And police interviews in the hospital,
Speaker 1: Livineko said that he had met with two former KGB
Speaker 1: agents on the morning of November one, two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: which is the same day that he became ill. Quite
Speaker 1: a coincidence there, And it turns out investigations prove it
Speaker 1: showed that one of the agents, whose name was Dmitry Coughton,
Speaker 1: had used a house in the car in Hamburg, Germany,
Speaker 1: which was where he was before he went over to
Speaker 1: London to meet with Litvinenko, and traces of polonium were
Speaker 1: found in both that house and the car. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of incriminating. And of course late Vineko had been
Speaker 1: accusing Vladimir Putin and various heinous crimes, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it a little bit. And so there was not
Speaker 1: one of might saying, of course, Laddie had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this. Nothing. Yeah, nothing, again, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to say mom on this, okay. So okay, So the
Speaker 1: murder theory looks like to be the strongest, right according
Speaker 1: to the British government. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, and
Speaker 1: obviously it's caused a little bit of a cooling of
Speaker 1: relations between Britain and Russia. They were kind of you
Speaker 1: know anyway. Yeah, but but this, this story is actually
Speaker 1: part of a bigger story which you guys may have
Speaker 1: heard of. And I'm going to talk about the Russian
Speaker 1: apartment bombings. Yeah, okay, yeah, in the early nineties when
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union fell eventually, of course, as you all know,
Speaker 1: Borisieltson became President of the Russian Federation after Gorby Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and then uh and he was re elected in nineteen
Speaker 1: but by nine he was pretty unpopular. And we'll go
Speaker 1: on to the reasons for that a little later. But
Speaker 1: but it was Boris in charge in nine and then
Speaker 1: in August nineteen nine, Yeltson fired his prime minister and
Speaker 1: his entire cabinet, by the way, and and then he
Speaker 1: appointed a fairly unknown guy named Vladimir Putin to replace
Speaker 1: his to replace his prime minister. And again Putin was
Speaker 1: pretty unknown at the time. He was a former KGB officer.
Speaker 1: Of course, we all know that, uh. Jelson also let
Speaker 1: up be known that he preferred Vladimir to be his
Speaker 1: successor as president. Of course, you know, I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: how many how likely it was to happen at that
Speaker 1: moment because Yeltson wasn't polling all that well at that
Speaker 1: I'm right at that moment. So before we get too
Speaker 1: far into because I know that people who are familiar
Speaker 1: with some of the history will will know this. Gorbachoff
Speaker 1: was the one who came up with para striker correct glastmost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that whole economic theory and stuff like that was
Speaker 1: just like open, like more open than he opened the market, right,
Speaker 1: which didn't do good things for them at all. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was mostly out of yelts In his his economic reforms,
Speaker 1: he talked about quote economic shock therapy and all that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he he was going to fix what Gorby had messed up. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that the whole, the whole situation had been
Speaker 1: messed up for years. I mean, planned economies never do well,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it was it was the problems
Speaker 1: is that the state was propping up failing businesses because
Speaker 1: no business could fail in the perfect state. But I
Speaker 1: was I was trying to remember who did what. So
Speaker 1: that's so that's the order that it went from. I
Speaker 1: think that I think Garbage pretty much continued the planning, uh,
Speaker 1: the planned economy, and and it was Elson who wanted
Speaker 1: to privatize everything. Well, no, not exactly. So it was
Speaker 1: because we were talking about Pere strike as that was
Speaker 1: where Gorbachev was trying to allow the free market economy
Speaker 1: to happen. A little bit simple, simplified version is that
Speaker 1: the state still controlled everything, but you could now sell
Speaker 1: to the market at a different price than what you
Speaker 1: sold to the state. The state got the right price,
Speaker 1: the good cheap price, but you could sell it at
Speaker 1: whatever you wanted. But of course then people started getting
Speaker 1: greedy and it started causing inflation, and everything got out
Speaker 1: of hand. And then that's when Gorbachev obviously was super
Speaker 1: up popular when inflation was through the roof and the
Speaker 1: it's the ruble. Yeah, the ruble was, you know, worth nothing,
Speaker 1: so then not quite, but that's that's a different country.
Speaker 1: I think that was Germany in the twenties something like that.
Speaker 1: But no, and then after that, that's when Yelson Um
Speaker 1: came in and he changed some of it. He still
Speaker 1: allowed some of the privatization, but they were still controlling
Speaker 1: the markets, but you had to go through the actual
Speaker 1: government first to get those contracts. To go through and
Speaker 1: that's how a lot of the bribery and these all
Speaker 1: of our situations came about. Yeah, essentially, and Yelson wanted
Speaker 1: to privatize it essentially, you know, in the end, but
Speaker 1: he still kept control within the governm. Yeah. But and
Speaker 1: his plan to do so was to sell off the state,
Speaker 1: all the state owned enterprises, which was a vast, vast
Speaker 1: amount of wealth. And and so he he just had
Speaker 1: every Russian citizen was given a voucher and I can't
Speaker 1: remember how much it was so that they could buy
Speaker 1: stock and these now privatized companies. But because of it,
Speaker 1: because of inflation, and because of just the end of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, a lot of people lost their pensions
Speaker 1: and we're flat broke. Almost everybody that was an ordinary
Speaker 1: system sold their vouchers for pennies on the dollar, and
Speaker 1: that's how and so they wound up all in the
Speaker 1: hands of these quote unquote oligarchs but owning everything. And
Speaker 1: this is why Yelson was so unpopular by the end
Speaker 1: of nine nine, Yeah, because the economy is just in
Speaker 1: the toilet, well it is, and all these people who
Speaker 1: have basically grabbed all the wealth need time to the
Speaker 1: economies and the toilet. The GDP dropped, and yeah, nobody
Speaker 1: had any money. Everybody was flat broken, unemployed, and and yeah,
Speaker 1: Yelson was not popular. Uh so that's that's the situation.
Speaker 1: And so that's when he then brings putin in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it pointed it was i think his third prime
Speaker 1: minister in a pretty brief amount of time. And then
Speaker 1: just right after that September. A month later, September, September four,
Speaker 1: a very very large bomb went up in an apartment
Speaker 1: building in the city of I'm probably pronouncing this wrong.
Speaker 1: It's like boy boyen asks and this is the former
Speaker 1: sub yet Unix. So the bill. You've seen those pictures
Speaker 1: of those enormous concrete block apartments literally a block, Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that whole thing that blowed up, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people were killed and was surprisingly nobody took credit
Speaker 1: for the explosion, and certainly did seem to be an accident.
Speaker 1: It looked like a deliberate bombing. And then four days later,
Speaker 1: in September nine, another apartment block was blown up, this
Speaker 1: time in Moscow, and then another one blew up in September.
Speaker 1: On September sixteenth, department building the city of Volgadonsk was
Speaker 1: bombed and you know, all two d ninety three people
Speaker 1: were killed and more than thousand were wounded and or
Speaker 1: maimed in these four separate bombings. Yeah, yeah, and everybody,
Speaker 1: everybody in Russia was scared. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: terror on a mass scale, and nobody, no didn't knew
Speaker 1: who it was that was doing it. And then on
Speaker 1: September fourteenth, another bomb was found and diffused in Moscow.
Speaker 1: Apparently a couple more were found around this time, but
Speaker 1: I'm uncertain as to the exact dates. And then on
Speaker 1: September twenty two, another large bomb was found in the
Speaker 1: basement of an apartment block in the city of Ryazon.
Speaker 1: It was defused before he could go off. And in
Speaker 1: this case, there were witnesses who actually saw the guys
Speaker 1: who likely were likely planted the bomb, And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if they saw them actually you know, bringing it
Speaker 1: in or running away, or if they were to the
Speaker 1: justice the guys that came by and rented the basement
Speaker 1: space or maybe all three, because it's most of these guys,
Speaker 1: most of these spaces they did cut people came in
Speaker 1: and rented space and then trucked in all the all
Speaker 1: the materials for the bombs and put them all together
Speaker 1: and then and then left. But in this case they
Speaker 1: had some faces, they had descriptions, and very so, very
Speaker 1: shortly every vertical surface in the cnity of Rhizon was
Speaker 1: covered with wanted posters with drawings of these guys. Uh.
Speaker 1: But still the motive for the bombings was unclear until
Speaker 1: the FSB and the Russian government said that there was
Speaker 1: what is quote unquote a Chechen trail unquote uh, and
Speaker 1: the bombings were almost certainly the work of Chechen terrorists
Speaker 1: or Daggers standi terrorists. I mean, it's a very complicated
Speaker 1: situation over there, um, you know, and chach Chestily has
Speaker 1: kind of like at least about half the step of
Speaker 1: churches is almost an anarchy, and there's all sorts of
Speaker 1: guerrilla group running around, and there's and there's people from
Speaker 1: Dagistan are operating in Chechnia. People from Chechen are operating
Speaker 1: in Dagistan. And so for a quick bit of geographic
Speaker 1: reference for people who may not know where Chechenia is,
Speaker 1: because I didn't. I mean, I've known the name of
Speaker 1: the country, but it never really logged in my brain
Speaker 1: where the heck it was. It's about a thousand miles
Speaker 1: directly north of Iran. It's in that neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: So just to kind of give you an idea, I mean,
Speaker 1: when it's a country that the Russian Federation is going
Speaker 1: to war with, I expected to be in the far
Speaker 1: north reach just for some reason. So that's why it's
Speaker 1: on the southern flag. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is
Speaker 1: um and there's there There's been more than one Chechen
Speaker 1: war between them, and so this is the second one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. This is right about. This is what kind
Speaker 1: of set off the Second Chechen War. And remember Vladimir Putin,
Speaker 1: he now the prime minister. He gave a really tough
Speaker 1: sounding speech at a press conference and any order of
Speaker 1: the air, bad thing of grossny Chechena and that was
Speaker 1: the beginning of the Second Chechen War. And of course
Speaker 1: that was actually ordered by Yeltsen, but but Putin was
Speaker 1: the one who actually gave the order. Did he look
Speaker 1: like the hero? Yeah, he's defending the Russian people from terrorists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's much like a certain man in this country a
Speaker 1: decade or so ago did. Yeah, it's like you know,
Speaker 1: Putin is still doing to this day. Yeah. Suddenly, Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin was a star it's popular, they want hugely. And
Speaker 1: I didn't mention this before, but there was a presidential
Speaker 1: election schedule for the very next year, two thousand. Then
Speaker 1: when Boris Elton saw that Putin was writing so high
Speaker 1: the polls, and Putin, the course was his buddy, he
Speaker 1: decided he was at the time polling about two percent
Speaker 1: approval ratings, which is basically none. Yeah, so he was.
Speaker 1: He decided to abdicate in favor of Putin, So he
Speaker 1: resigned at the end of December. December thirty one, Putin
Speaker 1: took over as president and I guess what, he's still there.
Speaker 1: He did swap. He did swap with the prime minister
Speaker 1: for one short term before he came back in his
Speaker 1: president again. And I assume that arrangement's going to go
Speaker 1: on indefinitely. This is a dumb question. Is he's not elected? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do people run against him? Uh? Well, on paper, yeah
Speaker 1: they do. I mean no, they do have sort of
Speaker 1: real elections, you know. I guess there's there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of accusations of tampering. I mean it was I think
Speaker 1: it was in the Ish range where he had an
Speaker 1: election where he was trailing massively in the polls and
Speaker 1: then one by some huge margin. I mean, so there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of accusations of funny business. But the thing
Speaker 1: is is that this this second Chechen War has begun
Speaker 1: just before the election, and because he's now the star,
Speaker 1: he just totally takes it massively. Yeah, which which works
Speaker 1: out well for us see how him, But more on
Speaker 1: that later. Um, well it works out pretty good for
Speaker 1: Putin too. Yeah. So there you have at the mysterious
Speaker 1: Russian apartment bombings of and there's several theories out there
Speaker 1: as to who did it why. First theory the CIA.
Speaker 1: This theory does not have a lot of support. There's
Speaker 1: only one guy who's put it out there, and he
Speaker 1: was actually sort of accused of being one of the
Speaker 1: many organized the transportation of explosives to Moscow for those bombings.
Speaker 1: His name was Adam Dukeshev. He actually doesn't cite any evidence.
Speaker 1: So this theory that doesn't really have legs. You know, what,
Speaker 1: do you guys think it's pretty convenient something? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. We haven't blamed them in a while, Yeah
Speaker 1: why not? Yeah? Okay, Um, so we'll put that theor
Speaker 1: to bed. The next one is, and this is a
Speaker 1: favorite with the Russian government, which is Chechen warlords or
Speaker 1: rather actually say Degas Danny warlords who are based in Chechenia.
Speaker 1: Just about a month before the bombings, the Chechen based
Speaker 1: group called the Islamic International Brigade invaded the Soviet Republican
Speaker 1: Dagistan in support of Dagistan separatists. A quick note here
Speaker 1: for everybody is Chechnia is an Islamic nation. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: not everybody knows that, but that's their their religion is.
Speaker 1: That's where this is going. That's what a lot of
Speaker 1: Wahabi Islam they're actually which is the brand, the brand
Speaker 1: that's promoted by Saudi Arabia. So it's a pretty it's
Speaker 1: a pretty what's the word I'm thinking of large, Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's a widespread religion, widespread. But it's also a
Speaker 1: very a very strict sort of interpretation of Islam. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not like, you know, it's not like the kind
Speaker 1: of the interpretation of Islam that you see and say Indonesia,
Speaker 1: you know, where people are a lot we're more relaxed
Speaker 1: about things, and it's like it's a kind of harsh
Speaker 1: interpretation of it. It's also just societal Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but that too Dagistan and Chechnia. The Russian army of
Speaker 1: course put this incursion down hard and they up going
Speaker 1: into tech you also doing a little bombing, and of
Speaker 1: course people were killed, lots of things were broken. Uh
Speaker 1: And reportedly one of the late one of the leaders
Speaker 1: of the i B that's the International the Islamic International Brigade,
Speaker 1: whose name was Iban al Khattab, vowed vengeance against Russia, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: the Mujahadeen if Dagistan are going to carry out the
Speaker 1: presals in various places in Russia unquote. But then two
Speaker 1: weeks later he walked that back. I'll have to have
Speaker 1: denied that his people carried out the bombings. He said
Speaker 1: that he was fighting the Russian army and not women
Speaker 1: and children, and so you know, he's made conflicting statements here,
Speaker 1: but he denies, he denies that they had involvement with it.
Speaker 1: And and I'm kind of generally speaking, when terrorists carry
Speaker 1: out an operation like this, they're they're very happy to
Speaker 1: take credit for it. Yeah, even sometimes when they didn't
Speaker 1: actually do it benefits them, they'll say, oh, no, we
Speaker 1: did it, we did it. I Mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: we hear that a lot on the radio or in
Speaker 1: these days where you know, they'll say there was this bombing,
Speaker 1: and you know, these five have said that we did it,
Speaker 1: and they you know, are vaguely maybe connected in one
Speaker 1: way or another, but you know, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: everyone's claiming it and it's like okay, you know, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to say, um, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: get back at you Russia with everything we have, and
Speaker 1: then to like see this horror that isn't you know
Speaker 1: that was kind of an attack on civilians and you know,
Speaker 1: women and children, and you know, to say like, no,
Speaker 1: we know, we didn't. That's not us though, like yeah,
Speaker 1: we want to get back at you, Russia, but we
Speaker 1: want to get back at you within like the rules
Speaker 1: of the Geneva Code or rules of warfare or whatever,
Speaker 1: within reason. I just don't think. I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that they would have done this and then not
Speaker 1: taking credit for it. Well they had. It was interesting
Speaker 1: the this this kind of has some relevance to our
Speaker 1: our next theory, which is that they did it with
Speaker 1: kind of gear that they didn't necessarily have access to, uh,
Speaker 1: certain explosives well, like like hd X and a certain
Speaker 1: time or that standard Soviet arm Russian army issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know the thing I mean, I I have a
Speaker 1: lot of qualms with the activities that go on in
Speaker 1: in Czechnia under the UH the rule of the Russian Federation.
Speaker 1: I mean, because the Islamic religion gets blamed for a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff and is always deemed as the terror group,
Speaker 1: when in fact it's religion, and all religions are full
Speaker 1: of good people and bad people. And so I really
Speaker 1: I I this this whole it's going to be the
Speaker 1: chech of warlords. Things bothers me because I feel bad
Speaker 1: for what is probably a primarily a group of normal,
Speaker 1: nice people just getting this huge labels slapped on him
Speaker 1: by Putin, who's dancing the victory dance, going look at me.
Speaker 1: I found the bad people that you didn't know we're here,
Speaker 1: and I'm taking them out. Yeah, And certainly there's a
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of people who aren't terrorists
Speaker 1: who just happened to be living in a village that
Speaker 1: is going to get bombed out of it. It's kind
Speaker 1: of sad for them, not unlike you know a lot
Speaker 1: of other places in the Mid East, for instance. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a fearmongering. I mean, this, this whole
Speaker 1: we're going to go to war against these people because
Speaker 1: they're terrible, is fearmongering that we see in a lot
Speaker 1: of political organizations in this day and age, unfortunately, and
Speaker 1: Islam is always the finger, the one that the finger is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it changes every year, Yeah, I mean it really does.
Speaker 1: And it's but you mentioned that, um that the there
Speaker 1: was some kind of equipment that was like a debt
Speaker 1: issue Russian army. Okay, so that's that's the bomb that
Speaker 1: they diffused in Rhison. So maybe what's the next the
Speaker 1: Russian government? Maybe Jeff fuel doesn't melt steel beams, of
Speaker 1: course it does. What are you saying? Yeah, the an
Speaker 1: American journalist. I saw this guy online giving a talk.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have seen that. David
Speaker 1: Satder Yes, s A T. T. E. R. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time living in Russia, speaks Russian
Speaker 1: and has been covering Russia for a long time. He
Speaker 1: traveled to Reason years after the incident and spoke to
Speaker 1: a lot of residents and also to the police, and
Speaker 1: believe it or not, nobody there that he talked to
Speaker 1: believes that Chechen terrorists or Dagistani terrorists or anybody planted
Speaker 1: the bombs. Well, but there's also I mean, there's the
Speaker 1: stuff about the guy who was ideed and on the
Speaker 1: posters and it was yeah, and so the building superintendent
Speaker 1: who rented him the space, yeah he uh, he described
Speaker 1: him and they did a police get to the guy
Speaker 1: and everything, and the guy had presented I d s
Speaker 1: if I recall correctly, and then he was hauled in
Speaker 1: by the FSB and they and they basically said, no,
Speaker 1: you saw this guy and and so yeah, it was all.
Speaker 1: That was all. And that guy was he was a karachi, yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. He wasn't one of those very there's
Speaker 1: so many there's a huge patchwork of ethnicities in that
Speaker 1: part the world. So essentially, yeah, so there is that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course I talked to you about about Yelson
Speaker 1: and his distinct lack of popularity, and since elections were
Speaker 1: coming up, Boris and his entourage were legitimately scared of
Speaker 1: what was going to happen to them if he gave
Speaker 1: up power. Uh So, a lot of people were expecting
Speaker 1: that Yeltson would find some excuse to declare martial law.
Speaker 1: And postponed the elections or canceled the elections. And it
Speaker 1: seems like that that was his only option unless he
Speaker 1: can install somebody in the presidency who was an ally
Speaker 1: who would protect him. So that was it. Otherwise warts
Speaker 1: Yeltson would they probably have been murdered or imprisoned or
Speaker 1: god knows what. That's how unpopular it was. I mean
Speaker 1: in America and in the West, Yeltson's actually got high
Speaker 1: approval ratings. But really the guy was so corrupt that
Speaker 1: he was just immensely unpopular. And I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you to explain what it is because you've you've
Speaker 1: said several times he was corrupt and that you were
Speaker 1: gonna explain it's tell me what is it that he
Speaker 1: did that makes you say that he was that corrupt. Well,
Speaker 1: I think corrupt is kind of endemic there. But I
Speaker 1: think one of the most one of the things is
Speaker 1: that is all our buddies who managed to come into
Speaker 1: possession of just about all the wealth in Russia where
Speaker 1: his pals, you know. I think that's that's one thing
Speaker 1: that people really were a little upset back. Okay, So
Speaker 1: it was it was known direct associates of his were
Speaker 1: suddenly very rich people. Yeah, and you know Yelton wasn't
Speaker 1: the only corrupt guy in Russia. No, that's that's just
Speaker 1: systemic to that entire governance. Yeah, and I'm understanding there's
Speaker 1: no corruption here in America. We are perfect America, America. Well,
Speaker 1: back to the city of Rhizon, Remember that's where the
Speaker 1: bomb was found that didn't go off, that was diffused.
Speaker 1: That where the main the main ingredient in the bomb
Speaker 1: was like rd X and there was a Russian Army
Speaker 1: issue detonator on it. As there were pictures out there
Speaker 1: that have been seen by people, and I also said
Speaker 1: that there are sketches of the bombing suspects all over
Speaker 1: town and say have been sealed up by police. In
Speaker 1: the days after the apartment bomb had been discovered, a
Speaker 1: telephone operator overheard a conversation between somebody in the city
Speaker 1: and a phone number in Moscow, and the manner the
Speaker 1: reason end of the line of saying, quote, the city
Speaker 1: is sealed and were trapped. What should we do unquote?
Speaker 1: And then the voice at the other had said, split
Speaker 1: up and leave the city one by one, do what
Speaker 1: you can unquote, And the polling operator went to the
Speaker 1: police and reported this and gave them the phone number
Speaker 1: in Moscow, and when Riason police called that number, it
Speaker 1: turns out it was FSB headquarters. The guys who have
Speaker 1: made the phone call didn't succeed in escaping. They were
Speaker 1: arrested by the police and they turned out to all
Speaker 1: have FSB identifications on them, So that doesn't look so good.
Speaker 1: A little confusion there, and and how how are clarify
Speaker 1: for me again? How were they tied back to the bombings? Well,
Speaker 1: they were because they were the ones who witnesses it said,
Speaker 1: had either rented rented space in the basement or we're
Speaker 1: seeing trucking stuff and compartment building. Just wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure I why yeah, yeah. But then the head of
Speaker 1: the FSB stepped in and cleared things up. He called
Speaker 1: a press conference and he announced that the bomb in
Speaker 1: Rhason was a fake that have been placed there by
Speaker 1: the FSB as quote a test of vigilance unquote. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He congratulated the people of Rhaison for their vigilance, and
Speaker 1: they even put on a little ceremony and gave the
Speaker 1: phone operator a new color TV as for her vigilance. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the yeah. Even though not everybody buys into the accusation
Speaker 1: that the FSB and the Russian government were involved in this.
Speaker 1: I have to say that Yeltsen certainly did in need
Speaker 1: some sort of provocation, you know, in order to either
Speaker 1: have be able to declare martial law, canceled the election,
Speaker 1: or two maybe go to war in chech d and
Speaker 1: and you know, sort of change the equation and make
Speaker 1: his his new president more popular so that he could
Speaker 1: he can win, he could stay in that office and
Speaker 1: protect Yeltsen after Yeltson left. That sounds this sounds really familiar.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna use quotes when I say nine eleven
Speaker 1: was an inside job. This this sounds like the same
Speaker 1: kind of of I've got, I've got the boogeyman, I'm
Speaker 1: going to find his trail. It's thinking, it's along those lines.
Speaker 1: The only problem with eleven theories is that there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of them. There's not a shred of evidence.
Speaker 1: But in this, in this case, there is evidence. You
Speaker 1: think there is there is evidence, But I also the
Speaker 1: FSB operated with such a level of impunity. Is the
Speaker 1: word I want to use? Is that the right word? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: so it is the right word. Okay. They that they
Speaker 1: didn't bother to do anything to hide what they were doing.
Speaker 1: They just nobody's gonna stop us. Nobody's gonna do anything.
Speaker 1: And they could have been doing something completely unrelated and
Speaker 1: it got tight And do I think that. No, But
Speaker 1: that's why I'm just well, you don't have to be
Speaker 1: I mean, it is entirely possible. But the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter is is they have been credibly accused in
Speaker 1: the Russian government Vladimir Putins mad they have been accused
Speaker 1: of being involved in in these bombings, and so things
Speaker 1: have happened since then. Remember I mentioned David Sader, the
Speaker 1: journalists who was living in Russi up until when he
Speaker 1: was expelled by the government because he was saying nasty
Speaker 1: things about them. Yeah, he was, and he was researching
Speaker 1: some stuff like the apartment bombings that they weren't enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about him researching. And he and several other journalists formed
Speaker 1: a little committee when they agreed to work together, share
Speaker 1: information and and to not let this story die. The
Speaker 1: other journalists were named s Yshenkov. You I'm really murdering
Speaker 1: this on a on a Poblico show and Alexander Litvinenko
Speaker 1: and so yeah, comes full circle does. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: of that committee of journalists, the only one that is
Speaker 1: still alive is David Sader. Sergei and Anna were both
Speaker 1: shot to death, um, and you aready was poisoned, um
Speaker 1: with conventional poison. And I'm like, I'm like our guy,
Speaker 1: Alexander Litvinenko, who wasn't It wasn't your ree poisoned with
Speaker 1: some poison that was known to be used by the
Speaker 1: KGB for years as a preferred method of poisoning. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so and so so that's that's why everybody ties it back, okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know, this is why I kind of
Speaker 1: like the Russian government involvement theory, because, you know, if
Speaker 1: these guys are just a bunch of crackpots just running
Speaker 1: around saying nine eleven was an inside job, you know,
Speaker 1: or the equivalent, what's the point of murdering them? But if,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, nine four was an inside job, yeah,
Speaker 1: nine four an inside job just doesn't roll off the tongue,
Speaker 1: although in Russian maybe it does. Yeah. I don't think
Speaker 1: anything rolls off the tongue in Russian, al right, But
Speaker 1: so anyway, it could be anything could could be. So
Speaker 1: wait wait, wait, wait, wait, slow down here, back up.
Speaker 1: You've just dropped that, and then you're walking you just
Speaker 1: might drop this. Yeah, okay. So we started out talking
Speaker 1: about Litvinenko and the fact that he got poisoned with
Speaker 1: a random bit of plutonium or polonium. Polonium that's made
Speaker 1: up word you finish, okay, And and now you've tied
Speaker 1: this all back to say that he's he actually was
Speaker 1: murdered by the Russian Federation for his activities in trying
Speaker 1: to expose things that were going on based on the
Speaker 1: apartment bombings. Essentially. Yeah, I think that that. You know,
Speaker 1: that's given that everybody that was pursuing this story either
Speaker 1: wound up I mean, and that wasn't just these four.
Speaker 1: There were other people who were investigating who wound up
Speaker 1: getting arrested on bogus charges and locked up. I read
Speaker 1: through a death list on some website and it's like
Speaker 1: there's a dozen high name people. Yeah, it's not yet.
Speaker 1: And so it's not just these four either. There's tons
Speaker 1: of people who are killed or locked up or whatever.
Speaker 1: We're asking the wrong questions about the apartment bombings. Well,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing about polonium is that it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty obscure. Don't that a D and D character. But
Speaker 1: the place that it's not so obscure is Russia. They
Speaker 1: actually use it for like coatings, to like coat certain metals.
Speaker 1: They know they don't use it, they use it in
Speaker 1: the process of coding certain metals. I don't think, no,
Speaker 1: they don't quote it in this, but there's some don't
Speaker 1: want some heat coating. You can use this alpha radiation
Speaker 1: versus the gamma radiation. That's what makes polonium so like interesting,
Speaker 1: is its alpha not gamma, And so you can use
Speaker 1: the alpha radiation to more effectively coade things, or at
Speaker 1: least you could anymore. But it's also used often as
Speaker 1: an anti um static electricity things, so it it was put
Speaker 1: on brushes and things like that. Almost everything you read,
Speaker 1: at least you know on a cursory look of the Internet,
Speaker 1: that I did for this particular substance. Yeah, for polonium
Speaker 1: to ten. Almost all of the uses you say is
Speaker 1: they'll say, like in Russia they use it for this,
Speaker 1: and in Russia they use it for that. In Russia
Speaker 1: they use it for this, so it's not everywhere else
Speaker 1: they do. So, I mean, it's not like it's just
Speaker 1: floating around in the air in Russia. But of the
Speaker 1: places that they use a Russia is the place they
Speaker 1: use it. So they use it nuclear weapons too, don't they. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have yeah, yeah, And so yeah, there's there's reason
Speaker 1: to believe that Livinenko was murdered by the Russians for
Speaker 1: his part and covering that story. The apartment at the
Speaker 1: Russia Department Buildings bombing, I think, I mean, it's I'm
Speaker 1: on board. And the whole thing worked out well for
Speaker 1: Yeltsin and for for Vladie, although Laddie I think is
Speaker 1: pretty innocent, um, you know, just kidding. That's why he's
Speaker 1: sure list on a white horse running through the surf.
Speaker 1: This is not the end of the story. Joe Steve
Speaker 1: has something to say, some other made up story. You know,
Speaker 1: you have completely overlooked a fourth theory. It could have
Speaker 1: been anybody else in the Russian Federation. Well, no, here's
Speaker 1: the thing is that Levinenko, when he was in the FSB,
Speaker 1: he was in a anti uh it wasn't an anti corruption,
Speaker 1: was anti gang league basically. Yeah, And so he fought
Speaker 1: gangs and he constantly screamed at everybody that everybody was
Speaker 1: corrupt and this place is riddled with corruption, and you've
Speaker 1: got to you've got to root it out, which is
Speaker 1: part of the reason that he left the country, because
Speaker 1: he pointed the finger at everybody. He then got to
Speaker 1: the UK, he wrote those two books, he constantly talked
Speaker 1: to the papers, and if you look at the things
Speaker 1: that he claims to the paper in the beginning, the
Speaker 1: very small claims, they're they're they're believable claims. You know this,
Speaker 1: this happens in the Russian Federation and when I was
Speaker 1: at the FSB, this happened, which means this person is
Speaker 1: responsible for this. But those claims in those accusations, because
Speaker 1: nobody ever checked him. The freaking Guardian just ran with it.
Speaker 1: He realized he had a cash cow, and he kept
Speaker 1: making He kept making bigger and bigger stories and accusations.
Speaker 1: And he wasn't just pointing at Putin and Yelson. He
Speaker 1: was pointing at all kinds of people all the time.
Speaker 1: So it's entirely possible that he pissed somebody off that
Speaker 1: wasn't even in the government. If indeed, there's all these
Speaker 1: gangs running around, there's a jillion people that could have said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm done, And the only thing that
Speaker 1: I want to finish on the is that it was
Speaker 1: an FSB officer that is tied to have taken the
Speaker 1: Polonium or the Paladin or whatever it's called colonium. Right,
Speaker 1: he was KGB and I thought was he actually an
Speaker 1: FSB employee. I don't know that I wind up working
Speaker 1: for the OK or not. But the thing is is
Speaker 1: that because the FSB Russian Federation didn't have much money,
Speaker 1: they were going everything was going down the tanks. You
Speaker 1: were only supposed to work for the FSB, but it
Speaker 1: was okay. They turned a blind eye to moonlighting, which
Speaker 1: is what let Vinanko did for He was a bodyguard
Speaker 1: for Boris thank you. I wasn't gonna be able to
Speaker 1: say that name. So he worked for Bearzovsky when the
Speaker 1: assassination threat came through. That one of the big ones.
Speaker 1: So it's entirely possible that this guy that is IDD
Speaker 1: was moonlighting for somebody else and operated under their orders.
Speaker 1: So there's there's an entire are another pool of suspects
Speaker 1: and we haven't even taught it's no, it's possibly yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's that this is just a coincidence that that
Speaker 1: all these people in this committee got murdered, and but
Speaker 1: it could be. I mean, there were there KGB floating around.
Speaker 1: Who were you there for? Higher and so it's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: My only my only quival with that would be is
Speaker 1: that is that they used polonium, which is kind of
Speaker 1: hard to get your hands on if you're not actually
Speaker 1: working for the Russian guys. Okay, Um, here's a theory.
Speaker 1: On that day that he met with the KGB people
Speaker 1: in the morning, former KGB whatever, Um, he had lunch
Speaker 1: with an Italian man? Was this who was a nuclear specialist? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they had lunch together, So maybe the Italian
Speaker 1: guy poisoned them, except the Italian dude didn't die, Soian
Speaker 1: I didn't have to ingest it, you just had to
Speaker 1: administer it. Yeah, put in the guys. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: could have put it in his t's true. What what
Speaker 1: motive did he have though? I mean, I guess somebody
Speaker 1: hate him to do It's somebody like the Russian government
Speaker 1: or any anybody else. I mean, it's just this is
Speaker 1: you've cracked it open. And I get where you've gone
Speaker 1: with your train of thought. But and I get I
Speaker 1: understand where all these websites that we read are all pointed.
Speaker 1: They they say, well, look at this chain of deaths,
Speaker 1: and all of these people were working on this one
Speaker 1: common story, But all of those people were also working
Speaker 1: on other things, human rights violations in all these other areas,
Speaker 1: stories about embezzlement and corruption in all these other areas.
Speaker 1: You know, So that it's it's a web that this
Speaker 1: just happens to be one of the correlations. And it
Speaker 1: may be that they were all murdered for different reasons
Speaker 1: by different groups. And it's just as much as I
Speaker 1: am choking on saying this, it is a coincidence. Um,
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible. I doubt it, but you know, I
Speaker 1: had to admit I'm not convinced, you know, but I
Speaker 1: I have to say that they're my strongest suspects. When
Speaker 1: the list becomes as large as it is, I really
Speaker 1: I struggle with it. I mean, I get that the
Speaker 1: Russian government is not you know that, it's not as
Speaker 1: if they have clean white gloves on and they've never
Speaker 1: done a bad thing, and they've they've never committed an atrocity.
Speaker 1: We all know they have. I just sometimes when I
Speaker 1: look at it, it's look at them, big brother is
Speaker 1: bad and here's all these people who died and the
Speaker 1: state said they didn't like them, so the state must
Speaker 1: have been responsible for their death. I get I get that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just you know, I just think they're
Speaker 1: the logical suspects, that's all. I think. It's a bit
Speaker 1: like the G. E. C. Marconi story that we talked
Speaker 1: about recently. You know, yeah, that's it's a little, big
Speaker 1: old chunk of people to die. And you know what
Speaker 1: Steve is saying is true. However, as an American, I
Speaker 1: think I am obligated to say it was definitely the
Speaker 1: Russian government. They are the big bad of this world,
Speaker 1: and it Okay, that's how I feel, all right, O. Cool,
Speaker 1: So we agree right on? Won two powers activate. I'll
Speaker 1: be I'll be over there sobbing in the corner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm used to it. I cry in public all the time.
Speaker 1: It's fine to not even at funerals, at weddings whatever. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: so you guys have any other thoughts or should we
Speaker 1: wind us down? I think you too think you've solved it. Okay,
Speaker 1: yeah we did, we totally did. Uh. Well, let me
Speaker 1: tell you a few fun facts here. You're probably wondering
Speaker 1: if we have a website what we do. It's called
Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways podcast dot com and you can you can
Speaker 1: grab episodes off of there, listen to episodes. We don't
Speaker 1: allow comments anymore unfortunately, you know why. Uh. You can
Speaker 1: also download and listen to us from iTunes. And if
Speaker 1: you do that, subscribe and give us a rating and
Speaker 1: a review and preferably good rating review and you can
Speaker 1: I'll stream us from like everywhere on Google Play also
Speaker 1: right um everywhere all those websites. Yeah, we're we have
Speaker 1: all tiny presence in social media. We're on Facebook. We
Speaker 1: have a group and also a page, so join the group.
Speaker 1: And uh, we're on Twitter where we are thinking Sideways
Speaker 1: without the gene and a sepread it thinking sideways what
Speaker 1: the g so fis out there? And you can you
Speaker 1: can you know, participate in all kinds of discussions of stuff.
Speaker 1: And if you want to contact us, we have an email.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not. Yeah, we are that twenty one century.
Speaker 1: Uh it's Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. And
Speaker 1: last of all, if you want to support the podcast,
Speaker 1: there's many ways to do it. Um, there's merchandise. We
Speaker 1: have shirts and mugs and stickers and and it's all
Speaker 1: available to Zazzle and Red bubble Um and you can
Speaker 1: see that in the right hand panel on our website
Speaker 1: these links to that. Uh. We are also on PayPal,
Speaker 1: so if you want to donate to the podcast, you
Speaker 1: can do a one time donation or the you want
Speaker 1: to give us like ongoing support, you can go to Patreon.
Speaker 1: That's p A t R E O N. You go
Speaker 1: to patreon dot com slash Thinking Sideways And if you
Speaker 1: pledge a certain amount, then that's every episode. If you
Speaker 1: pledge like a buck, then you know, we get a
Speaker 1: buck from you for every episode we drop. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so that's about it. None of that, None of
Speaker 1: that stuff is necessary, but if you feel like it,
Speaker 1: please do. All right, guys, any other thoughts here before
Speaker 1: we go. I love Laddie Gladdie. I like Laddy too,
Speaker 1: and I think he's totally innocent. Yeah, I think he's
Speaker 1: the most beautiful, illustrious leader we've ever seen in this world.
Speaker 1: And m yeah, I just love his hairstyle. I'm emulating
Speaker 1: it right for years working on that that putin. Look,
Speaker 1: I just wish that was as handsome as he was.
Speaker 1: All right, well, please don't kill us to bed. Yeah,