WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Death of Alexander Litvinenko 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.360 Thinking Sideways is not supported by a postal carrying primate. Instead, 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.400 it's supported by the generous donations of our listeners on Patreon. 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:10.480 Visit patreon dot com slash thinking sideways to learn more 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:26.960 and thanks Thinking Sideways. I don't you never know stories 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:32.360 of things we simply don't know the answer to why. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.200 They're Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am Joe, 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.959 joined as always by Devon and Steve, and this week 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.080 we're going to talk about another kind of an international mystery, 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.400 wouldn't you say more than kind of? Yeah, it's definitely 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.640 an international mystery for us. I guess I mean either 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:53.720 are people in this world that No, that's not it's 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.480 still it's still crosses country lines no matter which way 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.200 you slice it. Hey, it's international, yeah they do. Yuh, 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.200 all right, this is it's got lots of murder intrigue. 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:04.800 You guys are gonna love it. And we're gonna talk 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.920 about the death of Alexander Litvinenko. First off, I want 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.240 to give a shout out to Rosie who suggested this mystery. 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:15.680 Thanks Rosie. Um. And so let's talk about Alexander Lipmandienko. 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:17.759 He was a journalist at the time of his death 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.280 living in the UK. But before being a journalist, he 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:26.080 was an FSB officer. That's a good question. The FSB 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.600 stands for Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. That 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.959 doesn't sound ominous. Yeah, they're the successor to the the KGB. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:37.440 And what did the KGB stand for? Oh, Christ, I 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.360 don't remember, you don't remember. It's been a while, But 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.440 reportedly the FSB is is not quite as brutal as 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.560 a KGB. Not quite, but they're not quite boy scouts. Yeah, 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.560 Litvinenko was still with the FSB, and he and several 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.200 other FSB officers publicly accused some of their higher ups 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.880 in the organization of ordering the assassination of Rospirezovsky, who 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.760 was a Russian tycoon. You've heard of those those famous oligarchs, 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:06.720 you know, the one the ones who wound up owning 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:10.480 everything in the nineties and they're super rich and stuff. Yeah, 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.320 he was unlike most of the other oligarchs, he didn't 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.360 have any allies with the Russian government. He was actually 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.639 kind of opposed to Yeltson and Boris Yeltson, who was 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.440 in charge in the late nineties. Still, this is pretty 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.760 Vladimir putin. That's interesting. Yeah, it's just yeah, that's always 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.280 interesting to me when somebody who like is in power 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.639 for a reason is like, but you know, screw those 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.040 guys that are the reason I'm in power, to make 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.000 it easier for me. Well, yeah, but he benefited from 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.480 the situation. They weren't directly the reason he was in 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:43.080 power as much as some other Yeah. Yeah. Oh but anyway, 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.440 that back to Bezovsky. Uh, the assassination wasn't carried out, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.560 at least not at the time, though he did die 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:54.000 in thirteen. He decided to move to Britain for health reasons, 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.440 meaning he didn't want to get murdered. A lot of 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:58.679 people were getting murdered in Russian around this time. A 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.960 lot of people left the Untry at this time too, 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:05.160 for that very same reason. Yeah. But in thirteen he 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.320 was living, he was living in the UK. He was 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.360 found dead in his home and there's somewhat suspicious circumstances, 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.120 and he was he hanged himself in his bathroom. It 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.800 kind of looked like a suicide anyway, and but he 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.079 might actually have killed himself because his life had really 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:20.720 taken a turn for the worst. He had been through 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.239 a series of lawsuits, lost a huge amount of wealth, 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.080 and so he'd gone from being mega rich to broke. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.400 He had also it was known that he was having 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.760 depression issues. Yeah, he had much you know, a great 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:34.840 amount of time prior to that. Yeah. Yeah, so he 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:36.760 had depression issues anyway, and now he really had something 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.600 to be depressed about. Yeah, he was selling his possessions, 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.280 I understand, just to pay his legal bills. The corner 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.440 at the time still refused to rule the death of 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.440 suicide because, you know, because of who his enemies were. 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.040 So even though physically the physical evidence kind of looked 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.640 like suicide and he'd had a motive, but still, and 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.240 so it's still an open case because they ruled it unknown. 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.840 Is that right? Yeah? They did. I don't. So this 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:02.600 is one of those things that I just don't get 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.200 because you know, it's just going to fuel the fires. 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.360 Is I wish they would come up with a different term, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:13.040 which is death by this but with questions? Does that 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.560 make sense? Yeah? I mean, you know, they could just 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.880 say probably suicide, but I wouldn't guarantee. Yeah, there's no 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.240 opinion put in there. I guess there's a problem. It's 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.960 a box that gets ticked as to the cause of death. Yeah, 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.559 I think that the official terminology is open verdict, right, Yeah, 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.680 I know, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, but you 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.880 don't really want your corner's edit poral izing. No. But 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.560 but the problem is is that it then what was 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.159 the term that you just used again, Joe, Yes, open 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.640 verdict means that people always construe that as unknown and 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.640 all these things always get pushed into these cases. I mean, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.159 we're not talking about Berezovsky at all here in the 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.680 grander scheme of the story. It's just one of those 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.799 things that I notice about this, this corner, this process, 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.640 the British corner always bothers me. Yeah, but Berezovsky is 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.880 a bit of a footnote though. Yeah. But yeah, well okay, 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.000 if you're a British coroner and you're listening, I mean, 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.680 clean up your act all right or right? Associating email. Yeah, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.360 back to Alexander Litvinenko, Well, they were doing the episode 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.600 about Yeah, that guy a little sidetrack there, So obviously 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.120 he didn't stay with the FSB. I mean, after you 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.120 accuse your employer government that kind of stuff here, Yeah, 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.240 are numbered. Yeah, he he became a journalist instead and 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.760 was critical of the government. He left Russia in the 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.120 year two thousand with his family and was living in 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:39.680 exile in the UK, working as a journalist. He wrote 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.120 a couple of books. The one called Blowing Up Russia 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.520 and the other one was Lubyanka Criminal Group, and they 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.000 were critical. You know a lot of a lot of 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.600 people have said that the Russian government eventually devolved into 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.800 into a gangster government. That's kind of a well known thing, yea, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.400 through the decades. Yeah, yeah, before the fall of the 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.400 Soviet and they were a gangster government really, and uh, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.160 you know those ours they were kind of a gangster 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.280 government and today they are so I don't know. I 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.880 was just keeping my mouth shut because I like being alive, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.680 Mr Putin. That's a good point. Yeah, I like you, Ladimir. 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.279 You're very sexy. Yeah, when you ride shirtless on that bear, 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:24.359 just what I was thinking of. Yeah, we're we're hunting salmon. Yeah, 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:29.880 back to Alexander. In November two thousand six, Litvinenko became 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:31.920 suddenly ill in London and he was taken to a 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.160 hospital where it was discovered that he had polonium to 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.719 ten in his bloodstream. It sounds like a made up word, Yeah, 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:40.920 but apparently it's a real deal. But it's a very 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.560 rare radioactive isotope, which you're not gonna like, you know, 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.120 finding your average drug store. Lit Vinenko was hospitalized for 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.080 three weeks a little more or less, and then died 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.080 of radiation poisoning. Not a pleasant way to go, No, 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:59.159 I can't imagine you. So, so here are theories, and 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.880 there's basically three possible ones unless you guys have other ones. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:06.880 But yeah, it was an accident, um, Litvinenko was playing 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.440 around with a little polonium and maybe he accidentally inhaled 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.800 some or got him on You got the polonium slinky? 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.360 Is that what you're saying, Yeah, something like that. So 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.720 there's the accident. You guys have any thoughts on that? 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.600 And it seems a bit unlikely. Yeah, it could have 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.040 been suicide. He got his hands on some polonium and 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.280 ingested it on purpose because Miss Mother Russia is so 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.520 bad polonium candy. Yeah, I don't know where he got 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.120 a drug story. I guess there's another possibility, which is 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.120 murder boys deliberate poisoning by by the third party. Um. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:40.840 And there's a little bit of support for the theory 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.280 because several of Litvineko's associates had been murdered quite a few, yeah, 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.480 quite a few. Uh. And police interviews in the hospital, 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.080 Livineko said that he had met with two former KGB 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.520 agents on the morning of November one, two thousand and six, 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.200 which is the same day that he became ill. Quite 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.080 a coincidence there, And it turns out investigations prove it 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.840 showed that one of the agents, whose name was Dmitry Coughton, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.080 had used a house in the car in Hamburg, Germany, 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.200 which was where he was before he went over to 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.600 London to meet with Litvinenko, and traces of polonium were 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.960 found in both that house and the car. So that's 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.240 kind of incriminating. And of course late Vineko had been 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.840 accusing Vladimir Putin and various heinous crimes, which we'll talk 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.320 about it a little bit. And so there was not 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.000 one of might saying, of course, Laddie had nothing to 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.600 do with this. Nothing. Yeah, nothing, again, I'm just going 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.920 to say mom on this, okay. So okay, So the 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.800 murder theory looks like to be the strongest, right according 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.920 to the British government. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, and 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:44.600 obviously it's caused a little bit of a cooling of 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.360 relations between Britain and Russia. They were kind of you 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:54.640 know anyway. Yeah, but but this, this story is actually 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:56.960 part of a bigger story which you guys may have 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.560 heard of. And I'm going to talk about the Russian 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:04.839 apartment bombings. Yeah, okay, yeah, in the early nineties when 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.440 the Soviet Union fell eventually, of course, as you all know, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:13.320 Borisieltson became President of the Russian Federation after Gorby Yeah yeah, 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.000 and then uh and he was re elected in nineteen 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.280 but by nine he was pretty unpopular. And we'll go 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.479 on to the reasons for that a little later. But 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.880 but it was Boris in charge in nine and then 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.480 in August nineteen nine, Yeltson fired his prime minister and 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.400 his entire cabinet, by the way, and and then he 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.600 appointed a fairly unknown guy named Vladimir Putin to replace 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.880 his to replace his prime minister. And again Putin was 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.680 pretty unknown at the time. He was a former KGB officer. 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.840 Of course, we all know that, uh. Jelson also let 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.080 up be known that he preferred Vladimir to be his 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.000 successor as president. Of course, you know, I'm not sure, 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.400 how many how likely it was to happen at that 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.000 moment because Yeltson wasn't polling all that well at that 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.600 I'm right at that moment. So before we get too 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:01.640 far into because I know that people who are familiar 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:05.880 with some of the history will will know this. Gorbachoff 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:11.280 was the one who came up with para striker correct glastmost. Yeah, 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.600 that that whole economic theory and stuff like that was 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.840 just like open, like more open than he opened the market, right, 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.520 which didn't do good things for them at all. Well, yeah, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.960 it was mostly out of yelts In his his economic reforms, 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:28.440 he talked about quote economic shock therapy and all that stuff. Yeah, 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.079 he he was going to fix what Gorby had messed up. Well, 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.640 I mean that the whole, the whole situation had been 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:38.000 messed up for years. I mean, planned economies never do well, 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.160 you know, I mean it was it was the problems 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.440 is that the state was propping up failing businesses because 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.840 no business could fail in the perfect state. But I 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.199 was I was trying to remember who did what. So 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.560 that's so that's the order that it went from. I 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.720 think that I think Garbage pretty much continued the planning, uh, 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.800 the planned economy, and and it was Elson who wanted 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:05.600 to privatize everything. Well, no, not exactly. So it was 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.360 because we were talking about Pere strike as that was 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:13.600 where Gorbachev was trying to allow the free market economy 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:18.199 to happen. A little bit simple, simplified version is that 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.240 the state still controlled everything, but you could now sell 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.240 to the market at a different price than what you 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.520 sold to the state. The state got the right price, 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:28.440 the good cheap price, but you could sell it at 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.320 whatever you wanted. But of course then people started getting 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.520 greedy and it started causing inflation, and everything got out 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.640 of hand. And then that's when Gorbachev obviously was super 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.480 up popular when inflation was through the roof and the 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.840 it's the ruble. Yeah, the ruble was, you know, worth nothing, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:53.600 so then not quite, but that's that's a different country. 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:58.400 I think that was Germany in the twenties something like that. 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.000 But no, and then after that, that's when Yelson Um 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.120 came in and he changed some of it. He still 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.800 allowed some of the privatization, but they were still controlling 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.720 the markets, but you had to go through the actual 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.679 government first to get those contracts. To go through and 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.679 that's how a lot of the bribery and these all 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:23.120 of our situations came about. Yeah, essentially, and Yelson wanted 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.800 to privatize it essentially, you know, in the end, but 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.920 he still kept control within the governm. Yeah. But and 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.000 his plan to do so was to sell off the state, 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.720 all the state owned enterprises, which was a vast, vast 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.360 amount of wealth. And and so he he just had 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.120 every Russian citizen was given a voucher and I can't 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.200 remember how much it was so that they could buy 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.040 stock and these now privatized companies. But because of it, 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.480 because of inflation, and because of just the end of 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.720 the Soviet Union, a lot of people lost their pensions 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.960 and we're flat broke. Almost everybody that was an ordinary 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.000 system sold their vouchers for pennies on the dollar, and 0:12:58.040 --> 0:12:59.680 that's how and so they wound up all in the 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.520 hands of these quote unquote oligarchs but owning everything. And 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.040 this is why Yelson was so unpopular by the end 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.160 of nine nine, Yeah, because the economy is just in 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.600 the toilet, well it is, and all these people who 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.240 have basically grabbed all the wealth need time to the 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:21.720 economies and the toilet. The GDP dropped, and yeah, nobody 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.840 had any money. Everybody was flat broken, unemployed, and and yeah, 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.880 Yelson was not popular. Uh so that's that's the situation. 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:34.160 And so that's when he then brings putin in. Yeah, 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.640 so it pointed it was i think his third prime 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.680 minister in a pretty brief amount of time. And then 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.320 just right after that September. A month later, September, September four, 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.559 a very very large bomb went up in an apartment 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.480 building in the city of I'm probably pronouncing this wrong. 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.800 It's like boy boyen asks and this is the former 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:54.760 sub yet Unix. So the bill. You've seen those pictures 0:13:54.760 --> 0:14:01.240 of those enormous concrete block apartments literally a block, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.480 So that whole thing that blowed up, and a lot 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.920 of people were killed and was surprisingly nobody took credit 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.920 for the explosion, and certainly did seem to be an accident. 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.880 It looked like a deliberate bombing. And then four days later, 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.600 in September nine, another apartment block was blown up, this 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.240 time in Moscow, and then another one blew up in September. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:23.120 On September sixteenth, department building the city of Volgadonsk was 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.040 bombed and you know, all two d ninety three people 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.400 were killed and more than thousand were wounded and or 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:33.200 maimed in these four separate bombings. Yeah, yeah, and everybody, 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.920 everybody in Russia was scared. It was like, you know, 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.640 terror on a mass scale, and nobody, no didn't knew 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.480 who it was that was doing it. And then on 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.200 September fourteenth, another bomb was found and diffused in Moscow. 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:47.200 Apparently a couple more were found around this time, but 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.760 I'm uncertain as to the exact dates. And then on 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.720 September twenty two, another large bomb was found in the 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.160 basement of an apartment block in the city of Ryazon. 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.400 It was defused before he could go off. And in 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.080 this case, there were witnesses who actually saw the guys 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.680 who likely were likely planted the bomb, And I'm not 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:05.600 sure if they saw them actually you know, bringing it 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.520 in or running away, or if they were to the 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:10.480 justice the guys that came by and rented the basement 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.480 space or maybe all three, because it's most of these guys, 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.360 most of these spaces they did cut people came in 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.920 and rented space and then trucked in all the all 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:19.920 the materials for the bombs and put them all together 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.760 and then and then left. But in this case they 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.560 had some faces, they had descriptions, and very so, very 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.200 shortly every vertical surface in the cnity of Rhizon was 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.840 covered with wanted posters with drawings of these guys. Uh. 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.880 But still the motive for the bombings was unclear until 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.040 the FSB and the Russian government said that there was 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:42.120 what is quote unquote a Chechen trail unquote uh, and 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:46.280 the bombings were almost certainly the work of Chechen terrorists 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.480 or Daggers standi terrorists. I mean, it's a very complicated 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:53.120 situation over there, um, you know, and chach Chestily has 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.040 kind of like at least about half the step of 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.360 churches is almost an anarchy, and there's all sorts of 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.320 guerrilla group running around, and there's and there's people from 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:06.480 Dagistan are operating in Chechnia. People from Chechen are operating 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.120 in Dagistan. And so for a quick bit of geographic 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.040 reference for people who may not know where Chechenia is, 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.120 because I didn't. I mean, I've known the name of 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.280 the country, but it never really logged in my brain 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:23.040 where the heck it was. It's about a thousand miles 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:27.800 directly north of Iran. It's in that neck of the woods. 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.080 So just to kind of give you an idea, I mean, 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.320 when it's a country that the Russian Federation is going 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:35.560 to war with, I expected to be in the far 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.320 north reach just for some reason. So that's why it's 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.000 on the southern flag. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.000 um and there's there There's been more than one Chechen 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.160 war between them, and so this is the second one. Yeah, 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.280 it is. This is right about. This is what kind 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:53.000 of set off the Second Chechen War. And remember Vladimir Putin, 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.080 he now the prime minister. He gave a really tough 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.480 sounding speech at a press conference and any order of 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.320 the air, bad thing of grossny Chechena and that was 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.960 the beginning of the Second Chechen War. And of course 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.760 that was actually ordered by Yeltsen, but but Putin was 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:10.400 the one who actually gave the order. Did he look 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.600 like the hero? Yeah, he's defending the Russian people from terrorists. Yeah, 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.399 it's much like a certain man in this country a 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.919 decade or so ago did. Yeah, it's like you know, 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.520 Putin is still doing to this day. Yeah. Suddenly, Vladimir 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.439 Putin was a star it's popular, they want hugely. And 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:30.400 I didn't mention this before, but there was a presidential 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.560 election schedule for the very next year, two thousand. Then 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.000 when Boris Elton saw that Putin was writing so high 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.640 the polls, and Putin, the course was his buddy, he 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.040 decided he was at the time polling about two percent 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:48.960 approval ratings, which is basically none. Yeah, so he was. 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.840 He decided to abdicate in favor of Putin, So he 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:56.760 resigned at the end of December. December thirty one, Putin 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.280 took over as president and I guess what, he's still there. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.199 He did swap. He did swap with the prime minister 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.240 for one short term before he came back in his 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.679 president again. And I assume that arrangement's going to go 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:13.400 on indefinitely. This is a dumb question. Is he's not elected? Yeah? 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.400 Do people run against him? Uh? Well, on paper, yeah 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.399 they do. I mean no, they do have sort of 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.320 real elections, you know. I guess there's there's all kinds 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.719 of accusations of tampering. I mean it was I think 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.600 it was in the Ish range where he had an 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:36.240 election where he was trailing massively in the polls and 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.520 then one by some huge margin. I mean, so there's 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:43.040 all kinds of accusations of funny business. But the thing 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.360 is is that this this second Chechen War has begun 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.000 just before the election, and because he's now the star, 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:58.720 he just totally takes it massively. Yeah, which which works 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:00.679 out well for us see how him, But more on 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.119 that later. Um, well it works out pretty good for 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:08.480 Putin too. Yeah. So there you have at the mysterious 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.920 Russian apartment bombings of and there's several theories out there 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.439 as to who did it why. First theory the CIA. 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:17.560 This theory does not have a lot of support. There's 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.280 only one guy who's put it out there, and he 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:21.520 was actually sort of accused of being one of the 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.280 many organized the transportation of explosives to Moscow for those bombings. 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.480 His name was Adam Dukeshev. He actually doesn't cite any evidence. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.359 So this theory that doesn't really have legs. You know, what, 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:39.159 do you guys think it's pretty convenient something? Yeah, I 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:41.000 don't know. We haven't blamed them in a while, Yeah 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.000 why not? Yeah? Okay, Um, so we'll put that theor 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.200 to bed. The next one is, and this is a 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.600 favorite with the Russian government, which is Chechen warlords or 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.359 rather actually say Degas Danny warlords who are based in Chechenia. 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.200 Just about a month before the bombings, the Chechen based 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:00.000 group called the Islamic International Brigade invaded the Soviet Republican 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.600 Dagistan in support of Dagistan separatists. A quick note here 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:09.840 for everybody is Chechnia is an Islamic nation. Yeah, and 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.359 not everybody knows that, but that's their their religion is. 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.760 That's where this is going. That's what a lot of 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.879 Wahabi Islam they're actually which is the brand, the brand 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.360 that's promoted by Saudi Arabia. So it's a pretty it's 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.000 a pretty what's the word I'm thinking of large, Well, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.879 it's it's a widespread religion, widespread. But it's also a 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:35.159 very a very strict sort of interpretation of Islam. You know, 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:36.720 it's not like, you know, it's not like the kind 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:41.040 of the interpretation of Islam that you see and say Indonesia, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:43.720 you know, where people are a lot we're more relaxed 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:46.080 about things, and it's like it's a kind of harsh 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.560 interpretation of it. It's also just societal Yeah, yeah, okay, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.359 but that too Dagistan and Chechnia. The Russian army of 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.320 course put this incursion down hard and they up going 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.919 into tech you also doing a little bombing, and of 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:04.000 course people were killed, lots of things were broken. Uh 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:05.920 And reportedly one of the late one of the leaders 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:10.240 of the i B that's the International the Islamic International Brigade, 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:15.520 whose name was Iban al Khattab, vowed vengeance against Russia, saying, quote, 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.760 the Mujahadeen if Dagistan are going to carry out the 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.760 presals in various places in Russia unquote. But then two 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:22.679 weeks later he walked that back. I'll have to have 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.520 denied that his people carried out the bombings. He said 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:27.320 that he was fighting the Russian army and not women 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:31.840 and children, and so you know, he's made conflicting statements here, 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.560 but he denies, he denies that they had involvement with it. 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.160 And and I'm kind of generally speaking, when terrorists carry 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.560 out an operation like this, they're they're very happy to 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.200 take credit for it. Yeah, even sometimes when they didn't 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.240 actually do it benefits them, they'll say, oh, no, we 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.040 did it, we did it. I Mean, I feel like 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:50.639 we hear that a lot on the radio or in 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.640 these days where you know, they'll say there was this bombing, 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.680 and you know, these five have said that we did it, 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.760 and they you know, are vaguely maybe connected in one 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:02.439 way or another, but you know, it's kind of like 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:06.160 everyone's claiming it and it's like okay, you know, it's 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:09.720 one thing to say, um, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.800