BEREZOVSKY “ATTACKS.”

On December 14, the well-known entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky addressed participants in a Moscow conference, which was entitled “Civil Society and Human Rights,” from Europe via a TV link. “It has to be said,” NTV’s “Segodnya” program commented, “that the entrepreneur’s address was more like a prosecutor’s speech.” In his comments, Berezovsky contended that the Russian special services had participated in the blowing up of three large apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September of 1999-228 died as a result of the Moscow explosions, and nineteen in Voldonsk–events which served to rally Russian public opinion in support of a new invasion of Chechnya. Berezovsky asserted that events which occurred in the Russian city of Ryazan on September 23, 1999 effectively proved the complicity of the special services in the Moscow and Volgodonsk terror bombings. “I am convinced,” he underlined, “of the participation of the Russian special services in the explosions of the buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. I am certain inasmuch as what happened in Ryazan’ was a precise model of that which occurred in Moscow and Volgodonsk.” NTVru.com recalled that FSB officers had been observed placing sacks, which turned out to contain an explosive device, in the basement of House 14/16 on Novoselov Street in Ryazan. In his statement, Berezovsky also emphasized: “The sole thing which I cannot do is to say that Putin gave the order for these operations or that Putin personally commanded these operations” (NTV, “Segodnya,” and NTVru.com, December 14).