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Russian Apartment Bombings
The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War. The handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months. The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September and in Moscow on 9 and 13 September. On 13 September, Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov made an announcement in the Duma about receiving a report that another bombing had just happened in the city of Volgodonsk. A bombing did indeed happen in Volgodonsk, but only three days later, on 16 September. Chechen militants were blamed for the bombings, but denied responsibility, along with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov. A susp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War (russian: Втора́я чече́нская война́, ) took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 to April 2009. In August 1999, Islamist fighters from Chechnya infiltrated Russia's Dagestan region, violating Russia's borders. During the initial campaign, Russian military and pro-Russian Chechen paramilitary forces faced Chechen separatists in open combat and seized the Chechen capital Grozny after a winter siege that lasted from December 1999 until February 2000. Russia established direct rule over Chechnya in May 2000 although Chechen militant resistance throughout the North Caucasus region continued to inflict heavy Russian casualties and challenge Russian political control over Chechnya for several years. Both sides carried out attacks against civilians. These attacks drew international condemnation. In mid-2000, the Russian g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aslan Maskhadov
Aslan (Khalid) Aliyevich Maskhadov (russian: Асла́н (Хали́д) Али́евич Масха́дов; ce, Масхадан Али-воӀ Аслан (Халид), Masxadan Ali-voj Aslan (Xalid); 21 September 1951 – 8 March 2005) was a Soviet and Chechen politician and military commander who served as the third president of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the establishment of the ''de facto'' independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Maskhadov was elected President of Chechnya in January 1997. Following the start of the Second Chechen War in August 1999, he returned to leading the guerrilla resistance against the Russian army. De facto Ichkeria ceased to exist at the beginning of 2000. Until his death, Maskhadov was President in exile. He was killed in Tolstoy-Yurt, a village in northern Chechnya, in March 2005. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oleg Aksyonov
Oleg (russian: Олег), Oleh ( uk, Олег), or Aleh ( be, Алег) is an East Slavic given name. The name is very common in Russia, Ukraine and Belаrus. It derives from the Old Norse ''Helgi'' ( Helge), meaning "holy", "sacred", or "blessed". The feminine equivalent is Olga. While Germanic in origin, "Oleg" is not very common outside Eastern European countries. Russian pronunciation Олег (Oleg) is pronounced ˈlʲekin Russian. The English pronunciation of Oleg is based on the transliteration of the Cyrillic alphabet, and overlooks three key features of the Russian pronunciation: # The stress is on the second syllable. In spoken Russian, the initial short unstressed 'O' is reduced to similar to the 'a' as in 'about'. # The 'л' (l) becomes palatalized to ʲ─ that is, it gains a 'y'-like quality, and but is still most closely approximated by a plain English 'l'. # The word-final final 'г' (g) is devoiced to Thus, rather than "Oh-leg", the phonetically c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Zdanovich
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Aleksander and Aleksandr. Related names and diminutives include Iskandar, Alec, Alek, Alex, Alexandre, Aleks, Aleksa and Sander; feminine forms include Alexandra, Alexandria, and Sasha. Etymology The name ''Alexander'' originates from the (; 'defending men' or 'protector of men'). It is a compound of the verb (; 'to ward off, avert, defend') and the noun (, genitive: , ; meaning 'man'). It is an example of the widespread motif of Greek names expressing "battle-prowess", in this case the ability to withstand or push back an enemy battle line. The earliest attested form of the name, is the Mycenaean Greek feminine anthroponym , , (/ Alexandra/), written in the Linear B syllabic script. Alaksandu, alternatively called ''Alakasandu' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Trepashkin
Mikhail Ivanovich Trepashkin (russian: Михаил Иванович Трепашкин; born 7 April 1957) is a Russian attorney and former Federal Security Service (FSB) colonel who was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999 that followed the Dagestan war and were one of the causes of the Second Chechen War. During his investigation, he was arrested by the FSB and sentenced to four years' imprisonment for "revealing state secrets". His arrest has been criticized by a number of human rights organizations and he has been called a political prisoner. Career in the KGB and FSB Trepashkin started working for the KGB in 1984 as an investigator of underground trade in stolen art. At the beginning of the 1990s, Trepashkin moved to the Internal Affairs department of the FSB, where he worked for Nikolai Patrushev. He investigated connections of FSB officers with criminal groups. He won a medal for inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Yushenkov
Sergei Nikolayevich Yushenkov (russian: Серге́й Никола́евич Юшенко́в; 27 June 1950 – 17 April 2003) was a liberal Russian politician. He was assassinated on 17 April 2003, just hours after registering his political party to participate in the December 2003 parliamentary elections. Political career Yushenkov was an elected member of all Russian Parliaments from 1989 to 2003. During the Soviet coup attempt of 1991, he organized the "living chain" of civilians who came to protect their Parliament in Moscow, and he successfully negotiated with military personnel sent to storm the building. As a person with a military background, Yushenkov was the strongest proponent of reform in the Russian Army, and he campaigned tirelessly to abolish conscription, reduce the size of the Army, and protect all rights of military personnel who suffered from abuse and dedovshchina. Yushenkov was a prominent critic of the First and Second Chechen Wars. He argued that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and supporters around the world. The stated mission of the organization is to campaign for "a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments." The organization has played a notable role on human rights issues due to its frequent citation in media and by world leaders. AI was founded in London in 1961 by the lawyer Peter Benenson. Its original focus was prisoners of conscience, with its remit widening in the 1970s, under the leadership of Seán MacBride and Martin Ennals to include miscarriages of justice and torture. In 1977, it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In the 1980s, its secretary general was Thomas Hammarber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Kovalev
Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov (also spelled Sergey Kovalev; russian: link=no, Сергей Адамович Ковалёв; 2 March 1930 – 9 August 2021) was a Russian human rights activist and politician. During the Soviet period he was a dissident and, after 1975, a political prisoner. Early career and arrest Kovalyov was born in the town of Seredyna-Buda, near Sumy (in Soviet Union, now Ukraine)."Sergei Kovalyov, Heir to Sakharov who always put Principles first, Dies At 91" (9 August 2021) In 1932, his family moved to Podlipki village near Moscow. In 1954, Kovalyov grad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yuri Shchekochikhin
Yuri Petrovich Shchekochikhin ( rus, Ю́рий Петро́вич Щекочи́хин, p=ˈjʉrʲɪj pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ɕːɪkɐˈtɕixʲɪn; 9 June 1950 – 3 July 2003) was a Soviet and later Russian investigative journalist, writer, and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament. Shchekochikhin wrote and campaigned against the influence of organized crime and corruption. His last non-fiction book, ''Slaves of the KGB'', was about people who worked as KGB informers. As a journalist for the newspaper '' Novaya Gazeta (NG)'', Shchekochikhin investigated apartment bombings allegedly directed by the Russian secret services and the Three Whales Corruption Scandal which involved high-ranking FSB officers and was associated with money laundering through the Bank of New York. Shchekochikhin died suddenly on 3 July 2003 from a mysterious illness a few days before his scheduled departure to the United States, where he planned to meet with FBI investigators. His medical documents, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State Duma
The State Duma (russian: Госуда́рственная ду́ма, r=Gosudárstvennaja dúma), commonly abbreviated in Russian as Gosduma ( rus, Госду́ма), is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, while the upper house is the Federation Council. The Duma headquarters are located in central Moscow, a few steps from Manege Square. Its members are referred to as deputies. The State Duma replaced the Supreme Soviet as a result of the new constitution introduced by Boris Yeltsin in the aftermath of the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, and approved in a nationwide referendum. In the 2007 and 2011 Russian legislative elections a full party-list proportional representation with 7% electoral threshold system was used, but this was subsequently repealed. The legislature's term length was initially 2 years in the 1993–1995 elections period, and 4 years in 1999–2007 elections period; since the 2011 elections the term length is 5 years. History Early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abu Omar Al-Saif
Abu Omar al-Saif ( ar, أبو عمر السيف)(1968/69-2005) was an informal name or nom de guerre of a Saudi Islamist and fighter operating first in Afghanistan (1986–1988) and later in the North Caucasus (1996–2005) as the mufti of Arab fighters in Chechnya, allegedly with close ties to al-Qaeda. His full name was Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Saif al-Buainain (محمد بن عبد الله بن سيف البوعينين). He sometimes also used the name, or was addressed as, al-Jaber. He was born in 1968 or 1969 in Saudi Arabia, and was killed in Dagestan in December 2005.Report of death , '''' quoting the ''Kavkaz'' website, 11 December 2005 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Achemez Gochiyaev
Achemez Gochiyayev (born 1970 in Karachayevsk) is a Russian citizen who was accused of organizing the Russian apartment bombings, a series of terrorist acts in 1999 that killed 293 people and led the country into the Second Chechen War.Gochiyayev's wanted page on FSB web site. The five bombings took place during two weeks between September 4 and September 16, 1999, in , and the southern towns of and |
