Blowing Up Russia (47 page)
Authors: Alexander Litvinenko
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Russia & the Former Soviet Union, #Political Science, #General, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Terrorism, #World, #Russian & Former Soviet Union, #Social Science, #Violence in Society, #True Crime, #Espionage, #Murder
In the pure form hexogene is only used to fill particular types of percussion caps and detonators. For demolition work it is used mixed with TNT, aluminum and ammonium nitrate, or with the addition of deterrents. The hexogene-containing mixtures PVV-4 (plastic explosive), EVV, TGA, MS, TG and others are only produced under industrial conditions using special equipment. MS is used for making nautical mines and TG-50 for making hollow charge projectiles.
For industrial purposes hexogene is only used as a component of explosive mixtures.
These include the so-called ammonium nitrate explosive substances. These are the ammonites - explosive mixtures consisting of ammonium nitrate and nitrogen compounds of TNT, hexogene and other substances: and ammonals - i.e. ammonites with aluminum powder additives.
Of the existing industrial explosive substances only ammonites, ammonals and several of their types are capable in the powder state of detonation by percussion caps, detonators, electro-detonators and detonating fuses.
263
264
In all the versions of events proposed by the FSB, home-made electro-detonators with Casio watches were used in blowing up the apartment blocks. This means that in the explosive mixtures used to blow up the apartment blocks in Moscow and other cities, only explosive including hexogene or a similar substance could have been used.
Ammonites and ammonals are called high-explosive or brisant substances (HES) because of their ability to produce brisance, i.e. their shattering effect on solid barriers in contact with their charges. Such a barrier could be rock or the walls and foundations of a building. The production of HES is classed as an explosion hazard technology, harmful to human health. The technological operations are mechanized and the most hazardous are automated or remotely controlled, i.e. from behind protective cover.
All of the above indicates a version of events in which the explosive used in blowing up the apartment blocks in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999 was industrially produced.
264
THE EVOLUTION OF THE FSB VERSION
CONCERNING THE CHECHEN ORIGINS OF THE EXPLOSIVE
Immediately after the blowing up of the apartment blocks it was announced that the organizers and perpetrators were individuals connected with Chechen illegal armed formations, and the director of the FSB Patrushev announced from the television screens that traces of hexogene and TNT had been discovered. Why did Patrushev make that announcement? In all probability the conclusion of the experts involved in the investigation immediately after the organization of the explosions was that precisely these explosive substances were discovered, and so Patrushev broadcast it. In addition to that, Patrushev knew that the second Chechen war would start soon. And a war, as everyone knows, would wipe the slate clean and the attention of the press would be focused on new events. Finally, Patrushev did not think that he would ever have to provide explanations concerning subsequent events in Ryazan.
It should be emphasized that all subsequent statements by generals of the FSB concerning the origins of the explosive are unconvincing and seem implausible. Thus, on March 16, 2000, in describing only the two episodes of the discovery of explosive in on Borisovskye Prudy Street in Moscow and in the ZIL-130 automobile in Buinaksk, and also speaking of the explosive used in the two explosions in Moscow, General Shagako stated that in particular cases there are admixtures of hexogene and in particular cases there are admixtures of TNT.
Which particular - i.e. not singular - cases does the general have in mind, while at the same time emphasizing that the main components are ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder? Shagako contradicts himself. At first he states that the explosive substances discovered are identical. Then he says that in a number of cases there was hexogene and in a number of cases there was TNT. There are substantial differences between these explosive substances. For instances, hexogene has a heat of explosion approximately fifty per cent greater than TNT, a speed of detonation thirty per cent greater, a pulverizing
THE EVOLUTION OF THE FSB VERSION
265
capacity several times greater, a detonation capability 3-4 times greater and is also 20 times more susceptible to mechanical impact. Other characteristics also differ. This means that explosive mixtures with hexogene and explosive mixtures with TNT cannot be regarded as identical.
Only four days went by and then General Zdanovich publicly announced that there was no hexogene at all.
Then on March 16, 2000, General Zdanovich announced that the FSB knew nothing about any theft of explosive from state factories, but already in May 2000 the Minister of Education Filippov informed the FSB of the illegal removal of hexogene from military units and its dispatch to an unknown destination, and about numerous cases discovered of the illegal circulation of explosive substances, including from chemical plants. But for some reason this circumstance was not investigated within the framework of the criminal case concerning the 1999 bombings.
In December 2000 in an interview with Khinstein concerning the Moscow explosions, General Mironov declared that some of the perpetrators have been arrested.
But that did not correspond to reality: no one had been arrested for the explosions in Moscow. Mironov goes on to state, in response to the question of how exactly the hexogene was delivered to Moscow that today the entire route has been identified by us. He asserts that there was a special installation at sabotage training camps in two regions of Chechnya, i.e. one at the same time in two regions, for producing the explosive mixture in large quantities. Its components included ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder and sugar. Why does the general mention sugar ? Most likely because according to the version of events propagandized in the mass media the explosive was delivered disguised as sugar. But the general is clearly not certain exactly how: was it in sacks for sugar together with sacks of real sugar, or in a mixture with sugar together with sacks of sugar?
The following words of Mironov are extremely important: Then the sugar was transferred to Kislovodsk, where it was based, and from there in a heavy-duty van together with sacks of sugar it was delivered to Moscow. They distributed it to several addresses. Here it should be noted that it follows from the general s words that the entire technological process of manufacturing the explosion was completed in full in Chechnya on a single unknown installation (which for some reason was located simultaneously in two regions of that mountain republic). But the most important thing in Mironov s interview is that in answering the question about the delivery of hexogene to Moscow, Mironov does not mention this word even once. And the generally hypercritical correspondent Khinstein fails to notice the absence of an answer to his question.
Mironov s position is quite understandable: explaining in any plausible manner the appearance of the substance hexogene in the mountainous regions of Chechnya and its use in the manufacture of an explosive mixture is an impossible task because of the chemical properties of this explosive substance and the absence of the necessary
265
266
technological base. If we follow the FSB version of events in which there was no hexogene in the explosive used, then it could mean that Zainutdinov, under whose nails hexogene was supposedly discovered, was wrongfully convicted of the explosion in Buinaksk.
The FSB s hexogene-free version of events constantly runs up against deliberate or accidental lack of correspondence with the testimony of other official departments. For instance, the MVD confirms the discovery at the scene of high-explosive substances, characterizes them as industrial, and in the case in Ryazan states that an explosive device was disarmed, i.e. it was not an imitation. In May 2002 the General Public Prosecutor s Office (Kolmogorov) is clearly trying to oblige the FSB. But instead of limiting itself to confirming the fact that sugar was discovered, it describes in detail high-explosive substances that were not discovered in Ryazan, naming seven types. If we are to follow the logic of the General Public Prosecutor s Office then this is a description of those explosive substances which were actually used in blowing up the apartment blocks, i.e. including hexogene. But they do not include either aluminum nitrate or aluminum powder or dust, or industrial oil, or plastic explosive.
It should be noted that immediately after the explosion of September 4, 1999 in Buinaksk and the explosion in Moscow at 9 Guryanov Street on September 9, 1999 dubious publications began to appear in the mass media. Already on September 10, 1999 on the internet at the Lenta.ru site unsigned material appeared, claiming: Hexogene can be produced in domestic conditions. Certainly, the author did not say where the components for manufacturing it can be obtained, such as nitric acid, how the chemicals or - most importantly - the hexogene produced can be stored in domestic conditions.
Nothing was said about the quantities of hexogene that can supposedly be produced in such a fashion and the possibility of its subsequent use. The unknown author went on to refer to materials in the newspaper Segodnya ( Today ) which sees in the terrorist act on Guryanov Street only a Caucasian connection.
Later other unsigned material appeared in the internet on the site Idlen.Narod.ru under the title Hexogene, in which the unknown author attempted to convince his readers that the workers in the factories that produce hexogene use it in the struggle against& cockroaches. However the author does not name the specific enterprises at which the specially strict rules for recording the output of product are broken and the workers expose themselves to deadly danger to pursue the struggle against cockroaches! The same author offers recommendations for producing hexogene using two saucepans of nitric acid on a low heat.
Gradually the authors who appear to be writing in support of the FSB began to give more realistic descriptions of hexogene and lead their readers to the idea that the Chechens used a hexogene-free mixture in the explosions. For instance the author Yu.G. Veremeev on the site Tevton.Narod.ru wrote that hexogene in the pure form is used extremely rarely, its use in this form is highly dangerous for the explosives technicians themselves and the production requires a well controlled industrial process. Reserves of hexogene are not kept anywhere. Veremeev then leads his readers to the idea of the hexogene267 free version already described, as proposed by generals Zdanovich and Mironov. He writes: Ammonium nitrate explosive substances are relatively easy to produce even with a weak industrial base (i.e. in mountain conditions) and with a minimum of chemical knowledge. At the same time their fugacity is higher than that of TNT and their use for such acts of sabotage (blowing up apartment blocks) is more appropriate.
General Mironov s remarks in September 2002 have a special significance. Thus, the general claimed that the investigation has a single precise and logically motivated version of events. Indeed, in the press spokesmen for the FSB maintained the one and only Chechen version of the explosive substances origin, although the law required the investigation to put forward several possible accounts of events, especially since it had been asserted that industrial explosive was used.
Concerning the logically motivated version of events it should be noted that it had also undergone alteration. At first general Mironov claimed that the explosions were organized by Karachaevans out of motives of revenge, but now it turned out that they were organized by Khattab, now dead, in order to set the various nationalities living in Russia against each other, for instance Igushetians and Ossetians. It is quite incomprehensible how blowing up apartment blocks in Moscow and the deaths of people who are mostly Russian could have affected relations between Ingushetians and Ossetians in the Caucasus.
Particularly important, however, are Mironov s claims concerning the explosive mixture.
Ordinary industrial oil, dry TNT and plastic explosive initiator were now added to the ammonium nitrate, aluminum dust and sugar previously mentioned in December 2002, and the role of sugar is also revealed.
Concerning the ordinary industrial oil used by Mironov as a binding agent, it should be noted that in explosives work industrial 30 oil in particular is known to be used in the preparation of explosive mixtures from recycled artillery powders. In this case the oil is not used as a binding agent, but as a deterrent, i.e. a substance that reduces the explosion hazard of the powder. But the most important point here is that oil products have a distinctive smell that could not fail to be detected by experts at the site of unexploded mixtures. However there were no reports of the presence of such a smell. In addition, it is unlikely that an explosive mixture including an oil product would not have detonated in the course of a lengthy journey by automobile and numerous shipments in sacks intended for transporting sugar, not explosives.
Concerning the term dry TNT, it is not entirely clear what the general had in mind - that the TNT is not wet or not liquid? In point of fact TNT is a solid substance under normal conditions.
As for the claim that plastic explosive was always used as an initiator for heating the main mass, this is a fundamentally new moment in the Chechen, hexogene-free FSB version of events. Explosives technology distinguishes between the concepts of explosive substances and means of initiation. The latter may or may not contain
266
268
explosive substances. Plastic explosive is an extremely powerful substance employed in means of initiation. Means of initiation specifically include the electro-detonators used in blowing up the apartment blocks according to the FSB version of events. By virtue of their technical characteristics they can only be used with explosive mixtures containing hexogene. Therefore the appearance in the new FSB version of events of Mironov s claims concerning plastic explosive appears perfectly logical. This explosive substance contains hexogene and appears to provide an explanation for the use of the home-made electro-detonator with the Casio watch. But the general typically does not use the actual term hexogene. However there is no way that plastic explosive can be called the initiator, since in the case described by the general it is not the means of initiation.
General Mironov goes on to make a sensational declaration concerning the role of sugar in the explosions. It turns out that granulated sugar was an active component in their execution. However Soviet and Russian science was previously unaware of this fact. The academic institutes of the country, at least, have never published anything on the subject.
For industrial purposes hexogene is only used as a component of explosive mixtures.
These include the so-called ammonium nitrate explosive substances. These are the ammonites - explosive mixtures consisting of ammonium nitrate and nitrogen compounds of TNT, hexogene and other substances: and ammonals - i.e. ammonites with aluminum powder additives.
Of the existing industrial explosive substances only ammonites, ammonals and several of their types are capable in the powder state of detonation by percussion caps, detonators, electro-detonators and detonating fuses.
263
264
In all the versions of events proposed by the FSB, home-made electro-detonators with Casio watches were used in blowing up the apartment blocks. This means that in the explosive mixtures used to blow up the apartment blocks in Moscow and other cities, only explosive including hexogene or a similar substance could have been used.
Ammonites and ammonals are called high-explosive or brisant substances (HES) because of their ability to produce brisance, i.e. their shattering effect on solid barriers in contact with their charges. Such a barrier could be rock or the walls and foundations of a building. The production of HES is classed as an explosion hazard technology, harmful to human health. The technological operations are mechanized and the most hazardous are automated or remotely controlled, i.e. from behind protective cover.
All of the above indicates a version of events in which the explosive used in blowing up the apartment blocks in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999 was industrially produced.
264
THE EVOLUTION OF THE FSB VERSION
CONCERNING THE CHECHEN ORIGINS OF THE EXPLOSIVE
Immediately after the blowing up of the apartment blocks it was announced that the organizers and perpetrators were individuals connected with Chechen illegal armed formations, and the director of the FSB Patrushev announced from the television screens that traces of hexogene and TNT had been discovered. Why did Patrushev make that announcement? In all probability the conclusion of the experts involved in the investigation immediately after the organization of the explosions was that precisely these explosive substances were discovered, and so Patrushev broadcast it. In addition to that, Patrushev knew that the second Chechen war would start soon. And a war, as everyone knows, would wipe the slate clean and the attention of the press would be focused on new events. Finally, Patrushev did not think that he would ever have to provide explanations concerning subsequent events in Ryazan.
It should be emphasized that all subsequent statements by generals of the FSB concerning the origins of the explosive are unconvincing and seem implausible. Thus, on March 16, 2000, in describing only the two episodes of the discovery of explosive in on Borisovskye Prudy Street in Moscow and in the ZIL-130 automobile in Buinaksk, and also speaking of the explosive used in the two explosions in Moscow, General Shagako stated that in particular cases there are admixtures of hexogene and in particular cases there are admixtures of TNT.
Which particular - i.e. not singular - cases does the general have in mind, while at the same time emphasizing that the main components are ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder? Shagako contradicts himself. At first he states that the explosive substances discovered are identical. Then he says that in a number of cases there was hexogene and in a number of cases there was TNT. There are substantial differences between these explosive substances. For instances, hexogene has a heat of explosion approximately fifty per cent greater than TNT, a speed of detonation thirty per cent greater, a pulverizing
THE EVOLUTION OF THE FSB VERSION
265
capacity several times greater, a detonation capability 3-4 times greater and is also 20 times more susceptible to mechanical impact. Other characteristics also differ. This means that explosive mixtures with hexogene and explosive mixtures with TNT cannot be regarded as identical.
Only four days went by and then General Zdanovich publicly announced that there was no hexogene at all.
Then on March 16, 2000, General Zdanovich announced that the FSB knew nothing about any theft of explosive from state factories, but already in May 2000 the Minister of Education Filippov informed the FSB of the illegal removal of hexogene from military units and its dispatch to an unknown destination, and about numerous cases discovered of the illegal circulation of explosive substances, including from chemical plants. But for some reason this circumstance was not investigated within the framework of the criminal case concerning the 1999 bombings.
In December 2000 in an interview with Khinstein concerning the Moscow explosions, General Mironov declared that some of the perpetrators have been arrested.
But that did not correspond to reality: no one had been arrested for the explosions in Moscow. Mironov goes on to state, in response to the question of how exactly the hexogene was delivered to Moscow that today the entire route has been identified by us. He asserts that there was a special installation at sabotage training camps in two regions of Chechnya, i.e. one at the same time in two regions, for producing the explosive mixture in large quantities. Its components included ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder and sugar. Why does the general mention sugar ? Most likely because according to the version of events propagandized in the mass media the explosive was delivered disguised as sugar. But the general is clearly not certain exactly how: was it in sacks for sugar together with sacks of real sugar, or in a mixture with sugar together with sacks of sugar?
The following words of Mironov are extremely important: Then the sugar was transferred to Kislovodsk, where it was based, and from there in a heavy-duty van together with sacks of sugar it was delivered to Moscow. They distributed it to several addresses. Here it should be noted that it follows from the general s words that the entire technological process of manufacturing the explosion was completed in full in Chechnya on a single unknown installation (which for some reason was located simultaneously in two regions of that mountain republic). But the most important thing in Mironov s interview is that in answering the question about the delivery of hexogene to Moscow, Mironov does not mention this word even once. And the generally hypercritical correspondent Khinstein fails to notice the absence of an answer to his question.
Mironov s position is quite understandable: explaining in any plausible manner the appearance of the substance hexogene in the mountainous regions of Chechnya and its use in the manufacture of an explosive mixture is an impossible task because of the chemical properties of this explosive substance and the absence of the necessary
265
266
technological base. If we follow the FSB version of events in which there was no hexogene in the explosive used, then it could mean that Zainutdinov, under whose nails hexogene was supposedly discovered, was wrongfully convicted of the explosion in Buinaksk.
The FSB s hexogene-free version of events constantly runs up against deliberate or accidental lack of correspondence with the testimony of other official departments. For instance, the MVD confirms the discovery at the scene of high-explosive substances, characterizes them as industrial, and in the case in Ryazan states that an explosive device was disarmed, i.e. it was not an imitation. In May 2002 the General Public Prosecutor s Office (Kolmogorov) is clearly trying to oblige the FSB. But instead of limiting itself to confirming the fact that sugar was discovered, it describes in detail high-explosive substances that were not discovered in Ryazan, naming seven types. If we are to follow the logic of the General Public Prosecutor s Office then this is a description of those explosive substances which were actually used in blowing up the apartment blocks, i.e. including hexogene. But they do not include either aluminum nitrate or aluminum powder or dust, or industrial oil, or plastic explosive.
It should be noted that immediately after the explosion of September 4, 1999 in Buinaksk and the explosion in Moscow at 9 Guryanov Street on September 9, 1999 dubious publications began to appear in the mass media. Already on September 10, 1999 on the internet at the Lenta.ru site unsigned material appeared, claiming: Hexogene can be produced in domestic conditions. Certainly, the author did not say where the components for manufacturing it can be obtained, such as nitric acid, how the chemicals or - most importantly - the hexogene produced can be stored in domestic conditions.
Nothing was said about the quantities of hexogene that can supposedly be produced in such a fashion and the possibility of its subsequent use. The unknown author went on to refer to materials in the newspaper Segodnya ( Today ) which sees in the terrorist act on Guryanov Street only a Caucasian connection.
Later other unsigned material appeared in the internet on the site Idlen.Narod.ru under the title Hexogene, in which the unknown author attempted to convince his readers that the workers in the factories that produce hexogene use it in the struggle against& cockroaches. However the author does not name the specific enterprises at which the specially strict rules for recording the output of product are broken and the workers expose themselves to deadly danger to pursue the struggle against cockroaches! The same author offers recommendations for producing hexogene using two saucepans of nitric acid on a low heat.
Gradually the authors who appear to be writing in support of the FSB began to give more realistic descriptions of hexogene and lead their readers to the idea that the Chechens used a hexogene-free mixture in the explosions. For instance the author Yu.G. Veremeev on the site Tevton.Narod.ru wrote that hexogene in the pure form is used extremely rarely, its use in this form is highly dangerous for the explosives technicians themselves and the production requires a well controlled industrial process. Reserves of hexogene are not kept anywhere. Veremeev then leads his readers to the idea of the hexogene267 free version already described, as proposed by generals Zdanovich and Mironov. He writes: Ammonium nitrate explosive substances are relatively easy to produce even with a weak industrial base (i.e. in mountain conditions) and with a minimum of chemical knowledge. At the same time their fugacity is higher than that of TNT and their use for such acts of sabotage (blowing up apartment blocks) is more appropriate.
General Mironov s remarks in September 2002 have a special significance. Thus, the general claimed that the investigation has a single precise and logically motivated version of events. Indeed, in the press spokesmen for the FSB maintained the one and only Chechen version of the explosive substances origin, although the law required the investigation to put forward several possible accounts of events, especially since it had been asserted that industrial explosive was used.
Concerning the logically motivated version of events it should be noted that it had also undergone alteration. At first general Mironov claimed that the explosions were organized by Karachaevans out of motives of revenge, but now it turned out that they were organized by Khattab, now dead, in order to set the various nationalities living in Russia against each other, for instance Igushetians and Ossetians. It is quite incomprehensible how blowing up apartment blocks in Moscow and the deaths of people who are mostly Russian could have affected relations between Ingushetians and Ossetians in the Caucasus.
Particularly important, however, are Mironov s claims concerning the explosive mixture.
Ordinary industrial oil, dry TNT and plastic explosive initiator were now added to the ammonium nitrate, aluminum dust and sugar previously mentioned in December 2002, and the role of sugar is also revealed.
Concerning the ordinary industrial oil used by Mironov as a binding agent, it should be noted that in explosives work industrial 30 oil in particular is known to be used in the preparation of explosive mixtures from recycled artillery powders. In this case the oil is not used as a binding agent, but as a deterrent, i.e. a substance that reduces the explosion hazard of the powder. But the most important point here is that oil products have a distinctive smell that could not fail to be detected by experts at the site of unexploded mixtures. However there were no reports of the presence of such a smell. In addition, it is unlikely that an explosive mixture including an oil product would not have detonated in the course of a lengthy journey by automobile and numerous shipments in sacks intended for transporting sugar, not explosives.
Concerning the term dry TNT, it is not entirely clear what the general had in mind - that the TNT is not wet or not liquid? In point of fact TNT is a solid substance under normal conditions.
As for the claim that plastic explosive was always used as an initiator for heating the main mass, this is a fundamentally new moment in the Chechen, hexogene-free FSB version of events. Explosives technology distinguishes between the concepts of explosive substances and means of initiation. The latter may or may not contain
266
268
explosive substances. Plastic explosive is an extremely powerful substance employed in means of initiation. Means of initiation specifically include the electro-detonators used in blowing up the apartment blocks according to the FSB version of events. By virtue of their technical characteristics they can only be used with explosive mixtures containing hexogene. Therefore the appearance in the new FSB version of events of Mironov s claims concerning plastic explosive appears perfectly logical. This explosive substance contains hexogene and appears to provide an explanation for the use of the home-made electro-detonator with the Casio watch. But the general typically does not use the actual term hexogene. However there is no way that plastic explosive can be called the initiator, since in the case described by the general it is not the means of initiation.
General Mironov goes on to make a sensational declaration concerning the role of sugar in the explosions. It turns out that granulated sugar was an active component in their execution. However Soviet and Russian science was previously unaware of this fact. The academic institutes of the country, at least, have never published anything on the subject.
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