Moscow
Russia sentenced two men to life in prison this week for the 1999 apartment bombings that killed more than 200 people, mostly in Moscow. The attacks were blamed on Chechen rebels and sparked the second Chechen war. But the trial of Yusuf Krymshamkhalov and Adam Dekkushev, who are from a province near Chechnya, was conducted in secret, and Russian observers said the verdict would not dispel persistent conspiracy theories. Former secret-police agent Alexander Litvinenko, who defected to Britain, alleged in a recent book that the secret police staged the explosions to provide a pretext for war. He cited an incident in which regular Russian police discovered explosives in one apartment building and traced them to the secret police, who said the explosives were fakes put there as a training exercise.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Such wrongdoing encourages foreign corrupt practices'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Can Japan's new prime minister govern effectively?Today's Big Question A 'popular gadfly' gets the top job
-
UK cedes Chagos Islands to Mauritius, minus US baseSpeed Read Mauritius has long argued it was forced to give up the islands in 1965 in return for independence from Britain
