Straight Talk the British Way

Aleksandr Goldfarb

Yezhednevniy Zhurnal

February 4, 2008

David King came right out and said what everyone has known but most of the time was afraid to say [about the Moscow apartment bombings in 1999]. Because everyone who has seriously considered this question long ago came to the conclusion that the Russian authorities were behind these explosions. We do not yet know what proof the British services may have, so what is significant now is not the content of the statement, but the fact that they decided to make it exactly now.

I think the British are sending a kind of signal to the Kremlin, in order to pour oil on the fire of the power struggles that are expected after the change of presidents. I expect this whole story will be hauled out of the archives, and will gain momentum, because it represents a weak point for the Putin regime, something the regime has succeeded in sweeping under the carpet as long as Vladimir Putin has sat in the Kremlin. But all that will be rolled back in an instant by those who oppose him in the battle of the clans that is just now beginning. The fact that this story has not been concluded is now completely obvious. Clearly, Litvinenko was killed exactly because of his statements on this subject.

Everything else is just the fallout from these events. The British are letting everyone concerned know: Hey guys, don’t get too carried away now with your attacks and persecutions against us, because we have this little ace in the hole. And if this story about the apartment bombings gets on the official agenda, then those who organized it and those who are members of the Putin clan will be up to their necks in it.

Until now the people who risked their lives trying to get this topic on the agenda have, by and large, met a conspiracy of silence from officials in the West - in both the U.K. and America. And for a completely understandable reason: no one wanted to come out in open confrontation with the Russian authorities. But now this wall of silence has been torn down, and the recent announcement by King is both a trial balloon and a warning signal.

Aleksandr Goldfarb is a human rights worker and head of the Fund for Civil Freedoms (FGS).