Russian President Putin: Partner against terror or part of the problem?

The possibility of a serious probe of 1999 apartment building bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities is unsettling the Kremlin.

President Vladimir Putin exploited the bombings in his successful bid for power and as an excuse to launch the second Chechen war. The evidence points to the secret police, which he headed, as the guilty party, as scholar David Satter explains.

Satter’s article compounds questions about the 1998 assassination of democratic opposition leader Galina Starovoitova, who was a major critic of the former KGB and of organized criminal elements that were part of Putin’s political power base in St. Petersburg. Putin personally took charge of the murder investigation, and Starovoitova’s friends aren’t convinced the guilty were found.

If the former KGB was behind the 1999 bombings that propelled Putin to the presidency, it could de-legitimize the Russian government – and complicate things for the Bush administration.

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