Are there a few Chechnyans who were really crazy enough to invade Russia (Dagestan)?
Yes, but...as far as Russian officialdom is concerned, Chechnya is just as much a part of Russia as Dagestan is. So it isn't as if they were invading "another country," from the Russian point of view. And they were invading it together with a bunch of Dagestani radicals; it was not a 100% pure Chechen operation. Just another little national-liberation bust-up within the Great Russian family. :-)
Has anyone wondered if those guys were secretly paid provocateurs, and perhaps the same with the Moscow bombers?
Of course! One of the most popular conspiracy theories in both Russian and Chechen circles today is that Shamil Basayev was/is an agent of the GRU (Russian military intelligence). From the very beginning of the whole Dagestan operation, there was a rumor circulating to the effect that Basayev and the head of Yeltsin's administration, Voloshin, had had a secret meeting in Paris. And then there were the close ties between Berezovsky, Basayev, and Udugov. Maskhadov himself complained that he "didn't like it" when Berezovsky gave Basayev a million dollars directly -- supposedly for the reconstruction of a hospital. And Berezovsky has never denied it! Plenty of material here to build a case on...
As for the Moscow bombings, we STILL don't know who actually was responsible. Even the FSB admits that the people it is looking for are not, in fact, ethnic Chechens, although they have reportedly "found refuge in Chechnya." (Where else would you go, if the Russian police were looking for you?)And have you heard of the "training operation" in Ryazan, when the FSB itself was caught red-handed planting a bomb? That has provided a lot of rumor fuel, needless to say! |
