The explosion in the central market of Grozny (1999)

The explosion in the Central Market of Grozny occurred in the afternoon of October 21, 1999. As Reuters announced, an explosion in a market in the capital of Chechnya killed more than 60 civilians, including women and children; about 200 people were injured, about 30 were hospitalized. The Associated Press agency reported an even greater number of victims: more than 100 people died and 400 were injured. According to Western media, the Grozny market was damaged by a missile strike by Russian troops ^[1] . The journalist of Radio Liberty Raduyev counted over 130 victims ^[2] . According to other sources, 140 were killed and up to 400 people were injured ^[2] .

Since 2003, the writer Polina Zherebtsova and human rights activist Natalya Estemirova investigated the shelling of the Grozny market with rockets ^[3] .

The testimony of the writer Polina Zherebtsova , a native of the city of Grozny, who was wounded during the shelling ^[4] :

“There was a feeling that after a large rocket exploded, other small rockets that burst from it also began to explode. Many of the survivors ran to look for their friends, relatives, who were at the epicenter. And came under new explosions. People subsequently searched for their own for another two to three days. Found pieces of bodies. They identified their mother, aunt, and their sister by their jackets and hairpins on their hair. ”

Witness Zelimkhan Gireev, a resident of Grozny ^[5] :

“On October 21, I, my brother Aslanbek and our acquaintance in a“ Zhiguli ”car drove to the central market to stock up on groceries. It was around at 16.30. ... Aslanbek immediately went towards the fish rows. I walked along other rows and heard explosions, one after another several very strong explosions sounded. I turned and felt a strong whistle in my right ear. At the same time, hundreds of fragments ricocheted around. All around, women screamed and cried, wounded everywhere, severed arms and legs, blood. It seems to me that people did not understand what happened to them. Some of the wounded, with torn limbs, stood with a strange, calm look. Some were unconscious. My brother stood at the stalls. He held his left hand, or rather, what was left of it, with his right. He was covered in blood. The neck and face are burnt, with ragged pieces of skin. There is an open wound on the left temple. There was not a millimeter of normal skin color on the face, the whole face was wounded. A piece of lower lip was torn off, fragments fell into both eyes. ”

One of the first about the explosion was reported by the correspondent of Radio Liberty Andrei Babitsky . In his report from the scene, he immediately stated that the cause of the explosion was a missile strike by the Russian Armed Forces ^[2] :

“The blow to the Central market of Grozny, that part of it, where clothes, utensils, equipment and other things are sold, not food, caught people at the end of the market day, when everyone rushes to make the necessary purchases after work. This morning we all went to the market. ... An entire quarter of trays, booths and awnings was demolished by an explosion. ... an absolutely ordinary collective farm market, they sell food there, and where the rocket fell, they sell things. We went to the 9th city hospital, ... and there we found a monstrous picture: blood-stained floors and a huge number of wounded. Wounded, killed, and dying right before our eyes, people were brought up every second. Buses, minibuses, cars. The entire courtyard of the hospital was filled with cars with seriously injured people who did not have time to bring to the hospital. I’ll say that I counted about thirty people, and it was not always clear who was just injured and who was already dead. ”

Another journalist of Radio Liberty, Khasin Raduyev, also reports ^[2] :

“ All the rockets exploded in the central part of the city. In the Central Market, the shopping malls of which operate almost around the clock, 61 people died. In the mosque of the Kalinin village during the evening prayers, there were about 60 people. 41 died. One of the rockets exploded in the courtyard of the only operating maternity hospital in Grozny. The victims were 13 women and 15 newborn babies. Another 7 people died from fragments in the parking lot in front of the hospital. "There are many wounded at the Main Post Office, where in the parking lot at the time of the explosion there were several buses with passengers. "

Ammunition depot explosion version

According to the report of the First Deputy Military Prosecutor, Colonel of Justice Kalita V.I., “a large number of verification activities were carried out in various constituent entities of the Russian Federation. There is no evidence confirming the application at the place of trade of an air, missile, bomb or artillery attack by the Federal Forces of the Russian Federation. ” On January 22, 2007, based on the results of the audit, a decision was issued to refuse to institute criminal proceedings under paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Art. 24 Code of Criminal Procedure. “Regarding the events that took place on October 21, 1999 in the central market of the city of Grozny, it was verified that it was reliably verified that on October 21, 1999, in the premises of an illegal arms and ammunition depot located on the central market of Grozny, where weapons and ammunition were sold to individuals from among the illegal armed groups, there was a powerful explosion. " ^[6]

The head of the FSB Public Relations Center, Lieutenant General Alexander Zdanovich, in an interview with Radio Russia , declaring that his service was not involved in the explosions in the center of Grozny, nevertheless, noted the data they had on the storage of weapons, ammunition and explosives on the market ^[5] :

“... The militants, believing that no crowds would be hit by either aircraft or artillery, stored a large amount of ammunition there. Therefore, we do not exclude the possibility that spontaneous undermining of ammunition could occur, resulting in deaths ”

However, in addition to the official version of the Military Prosecutor's Office, there were other versions of representatives of the federal forces. In particular, Alexander Veklich, the head of the combined press center of the federal group of forces in the North Caucasus, on the contrary, claimed that this was a special operation of federal forces against arms dealers ^[7] :

“ According to intelligence, yesterday in the Birzha district in the city of Grozny, a market was discovered in which weapons and ammunition were sold to terrorists. As a result of a special operation, the market along with weapons and ammunition, as well as arms dealers, was destroyed. ... The operation was carried out by non-military methods and without the use of artillery and aircraft. ... in the dark, peaceful people do not go to the market, where weapons are being sold to bandits and terrorists, but are sitting at home. Therefore, if there were victims, they were those who sell weapons and ammunition to bandits. ”

Description of the arms market, colloquially referred to as the “Exchange”: “... I don’t know who called the site on the market where they play billiards, grill kebabs and sell weapons. Let's go to the exchange. Works. Kalashnikov assault rifle - $ 350, Makarov pistol - 250, one-time grenade launcher "Fly - 400, RPG - $ 1,000. ... the prices of goods directly depend on the situation in the republic. During the Dagestan events - jumped. Then they fell. Now they climbed up again . "" ^[8]

Version of the provocation of Chechen militants

According to other sources, the explosion in the Grozny market could be a provocation by Chechen fighters. According to ITAR-TASS , a former employee of the Ministry of Shariah Security of Ichkeria said that the explosion in the Grozny market occurred when the ammunition box was loaded into the car body. A former state security official also said that a secret meeting of field commanders was held a few days ago, at which Salman Raduyev made a series of terrorist acts “exposing the essence of Russian soldiers who commit atrocities in Chechnya” . Perhaps the explosion in Grozny was one of the actions that was realized after the meeting of field commanders. Its purpose is to disrupt the meeting in Helsinki "Russia-European Union" and show the whole world the "face of a Russian soldier" ^[1] .

In an interview with NTV channel’s morning news program on October 22, Alexander Mikhailov, the head of the Russian Information Center, which was specially created to cover the conflict in the Chechen Republic, said that no federal aircraft had made a single combat mission to Grozny on the eve, nor did ground-to-ground tactical missiles ". He did not rule out that the market explosion was the result of a terrorist attack prepared by the militants themselves ^[5] .

Missile strike version

The President of Ingushetia, General Ruslan Aushev, rejected the version of the explosion of an arms depot: “I saw fires in military depots. Even when the largest depots in the Far East exploded - well, one or two wounded. And then there is such an accurate hit and so many corpses, and so many wounded. It is clear to me, as a military man, that they struck with tactical missiles ... ” ^[2]

At the same time, the commander of the “Western” federal forces group, General Shamanov , in an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov , did not rule out the possibility of a missile strike on the Grozny market ^[2] :

Shamanov : Apparently, "funds of the senior boss" were used.
Dmitry Kiselev : What is a “senior manager’s funds”?
Shamans : It can be either missile strikes used by aircraft or ground forces, or precision weapons. "
To the question of who had the right to order the use of such weapons, the answer was:
“Shamans: This is not a question for me, this is a question for the higher authorities.
Kiselev : Can you give such an order?

Shamanov : No, I don’t have such funds. ”

At the same time, the President of Ingushetia R. Aushev de facto blamed the President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin ^[2] :

“Everything is accepted at the highest level. Land-to-ground missiles were used, in principle, carriers of nuclear weapons. When the question was discussed, what forces and means will be involved ... when the operation was planned, they gave the go-ahead. I think the president knows about this. Who will take responsibility without the president to use missile forces? ”