Saturday Matinee: The History Bureau

Summary

History Daily – Saturday Matinee: The History Bureau, Episode 1: "Putin and the Apartment Bombs"

Date: January 17, 2026
Host: Helena Merriman (History Bureau, BBC)
Featured Commentators: Andrew Harding (BBC foreign correspondent), Guest commentators, Russian and international journalists

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Brief Overview

This Saturday Matinee episode of History Daily introduces the first season of the BBC's new series, The History Bureau, with Helena Merriman. The episode delves into the 1999 Russian apartment bombings—four devastating attacks that killed over 300 people. The narrative revisits these events, exploring how the bombings set the stage for Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the climate of fear in Russia, and the unresolved, deeply contested theories about what actually happened—and who was responsible.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power and Purpose of Fear

• Narrator opens with reflections on how violence and manufactured fear have historically been tools for politicians to seize and retain power (01:07).
  • "If you need to truly distract the public, give them something to fear. If you want to be hailed as a hero, defeat an enemy of your own creation.“ (01:12)
• The 1999 bombings plunged Russia into panic and justified Russia's renewed war in Chechnya, with Putin as the principal beneficiary.

The Four Bombs: Timeline and Impact

• Helena Merriman sets the stage for the History Bureau’s investigation:
  • Four apartment blocks destroyed, hundreds killed, a nation traumatized.
  • The bombings are described as a formative national trauma and a pivotal moment in Russia’s modern history (05:31, 07:10).
• Vivid descriptions of both the explosions and their aftermath highlight the physical and psychological impact:
  • "The explosives create a shock wave... for a brief moment, there's just silence. Then you hear it—a blast so loud it can rupture eardrums." (05:31)
• Survivors, first responders, and journalists recount the confusion and terror as the events unfolded.
  • "The entire country felt under siege." – Guest Commentator (07:10)
  • "There were people screaming, just utterly traumatized." – Andrew Harding (07:12)

Unraveling Theories and Dangerous Questions

• Competing theories persist about responsibility, with an atmosphere of secrecy, censorship, and danger surrounding continued investigation.
  • "A lot of what we should know has been classified or buried or covered up." (08:11)
  • "But there's one thing they do agree on: asking questions about this story even now, can be dangerous." – Helena Merriman (08:47)
• Journalists and investigators who probed too closely paid with their lives.
  • "We know their names, the people who've been killed. They all investigated the bombings and that message has reached the Russian public as well." (09:05)

Russia’s Turbulent 1990s: Economic Collapse and Political Upheaval

• Andrew Harding describes his arrival in Moscow in 1991 and the surreal transition from Soviet control to chaotic, ‘wild west’ capitalism (12:34–16:24).
  • The narrative covers Yeltsin’s economic 'shock therapy,' galloping inflation, lost savings, and the birth of the oligarchs (14:42–16:24).
  • "The old people, the pensioners, started to come out of their apartments and sell everything they had on the icy, snowy streets of Moscow." – Andrew Harding (15:17)
• Rising poverty contrasts with the fast-accumulating wealth and power of the new business elite.

Yeltsin’s Decline and the Search for a New Protector

• By the late 1990s, Yeltsin’s rule is marked by scandal, poor health, and public discontent (17:03–18:32).
  • The political vacuum intensifies the jockeying for a successor who will safeguard the oligarchs’ fortunes.

The Bombings—Unfolding Catastrophe

• Chronology of attacks:
  • 1st bomb: Buynaksk, near Chechnya, kills 64. Initial reaction: distant, barely shifts public attention (18:32–20:47).
  • 2nd bomb: Moscow, 94 dead. Suddenly, the panic and media spotlight are national (21:20–25:27).
  • 3rd bomb: Moscow again, dead of night, death toll surges (31:11–32:03).
  • 4th bomb: Volgodonsk, southern Russia. Nowhere feels safe (33:25–33:56).
• Social reaction: Russians begin patrolling apartment blocks; sleep is lost to terror and suspicion.
  • "There was a sense that this is going to carry on, that we're all at risk now." – Andrew Harding (32:03)

The Chechen War and Convenient Villains

• Context on the First Chechen War, Chechnya’s pursuit of independence, and the emergence of terrorism and kidnapping as brutal tactics (26:39–30:53).

  • "Chechnya was overrun by warlords armed to the teeth, just bristling with weapons." – Andrew Harding (28:20)

• The Russian government and public instinctively blame Chechen militants.

  • "It was almost instinctive for people because they were the ones who Russia had been at war with." – Andrew Harding (26:31)

Putin Steps Forward

• As bombings escalate, the new, little-known Prime Minister Vladimir Putin steps into the vacuum and promises vengeance (32:23–33:09).
  • "He says he'll go after the rabid animals who did this." – Helena Merriman (33:13)

The Fifth Bomb and Enduring Mysteries

• Fifth bomb found unexploded in an apartment block. Discovery leads not to Chechen militants, but to the FSB (Russia’s security service, formerly the KGB) (34:17–35:22).
  • Raises persistent suspicions: Was the terror a pretext manufactured by the state to cement power?
  • "If it's true, it changes what Russia's sense of itself is. It changes everything if it's true." – Andrew Harding (35:22)
• Mainstream Western journalism mostly missed or dismissed the story at the time.
  • "I think we should have done, we should have covered it more and we didn't..." – Andrew Harding (35:53)
• Some journalists and investigators who pursued the story died in pursuit of the truth (09:05, 09:21).

The Difficulty of Believing the Unbelievable

• The episode closes by exploring how the most sinister, extraordinary explanations are often the hardest to accept, even for seasoned reporters and diplomats (36:30).
  • "The problem is a problem of imagination. It's so evil, so horrible... You have to believe the unbelievable. Once you understand that the impossible is really possible, everything makes perfect sense." – Guest Commentator (36:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If you want to be hailed as a hero, defeat an enemy of your own creation." – Narrator (01:12)
• "The entire country felt under siege." – Guest Commentator (07:10)
• "A lot of what we should know has been classified or buried or covered up." – Guest Commentator (08:11)
• "We know their names, the people who've been killed. They all investigated the bombings and that message has reached the Russian public as well." – Guest Commentator (09:05)
• "These were gangs essentially competing for power. The stakes were incredibly high." – Andrew Harding (18:15)
• "Chechnya was overrun by warlords, armed to the teeth... just bristling with weapons." – Andrew Harding (28:20)
• "If it's true, it changes what Russia's sense of itself is. It changes everything if it's true." – Andrew Harding (35:22)
• "The problem is a problem of imagination. It's so evil, so horrible... Once you understand that the impossible is really possible, everything makes perfect sense." – Guest Commentator (36:30–37:02)

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Segment Timestamps

• 01:07 – Introduction to the theme: violence, fear, and political power
• 05:31 – The start of The History Bureau: setting up the four bombings
• 12:18 – 16:24 – Andrew Harding on 1990s Russia and its transformation
• 18:32 – 20:47 – First bombing (Buynaksk): impact and initial public attention
• 21:20 – 25:27 – Second bombing (Moscow): media spotlight and rising fear
• 26:39 – 30:53 – Background: war with Chechnya and rise of radicalization
• 31:11 – 33:56 – Third and fourth bombs; deepening panic; Putin emerges
• 34:17 – 36:09 – The mysterious fifth bomb and evolving theories
• 36:30 – 37:02 – Reflection: confronting "the unbelievable" in Russian political history

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Episode Tone & Storytelling

The episode blends vivid scene-setting, personal recollections, and probing investigation. The presenters maintain a sober, tense mood, matching the historical gravity and enduring controversy of the bombings. The series promises to revisit the accepted narrative, pursue uncomfortable questions, and examine the lingering shadow these attacks cast over Russia and the world’s understanding of its recent past.

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This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in modern Russian history, journalism under authoritarian regimes, or the mechanisms of state power and public fear.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

Violence and fear have been tools of unscrupulous politicians since the very beginning. If your objective is power at all costs, then it's not hard to be willing to intimidate, frighten, injure, or even kill if it gets you what you want. The unfortunate fact about these tactics is that they work, at least in the short term. If you need to truly distract the public, give them something to fear. If you want to be hailed as a hero, defeat an enemy of your own creation. If you want people to band together, give them a scapegoat to hate. In September 1999, only weeks after Vladimir Putin became prime minister, four bombs exploded in apartment buildings across Russia, killing hundreds and plunging the country into panic. But who did it? There are several theories, but one fact is Vladimir Putin used the bombings as justification to go to war with Chechen. On today's Saturday matinee, we're bringing you the first episode of a new series from the BBC, the History Bureau, in which host Helena Merriman returns to this mystery, one of the most contested and consequential stories in modern Russia. I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow the History Bureau. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you.

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[Helena Merriman]

They say that when a bomb goes off, you feel it before you hear it. The explosives create a shock wave that pushes walls inwards, disintegrates glass, compresses air. And for a brief moment, there's just silence. Then you hear it. A blast so loud it can rupture eardrums. After the explosion, the aftermath of a bomb follows a familiar pattern. Sifting through the rubble, counting the dead, the hunt for survivors. And finally, the search for a story, something to make sense of the horror. Sometimes the story gives closure. Perpetrators are named, motivations identified. But then there are the stories that don't make sense, that lead to more questions than answers. From the BBC. This is the History Bureau, where we take journalists back to a story to ask, what did we miss the first time round? It's a second draft of history, and for this, our first season, we're digging into a story that the world may have been getting wrong for years. It's about a bomb. In fact, four bombs. Four bombs that blew up four apartments across Russia in 1999, killing some 300 people.

[Guest Commentator]

The entire country felt under siege.

[Andrew Harding]

There were people screaming, just utterly traumatized.

[Guest Commentator]

Children were terrified. Adults were patrolling round the clock.

[Helena Merriman]

And these bombs and everything that followed have sparked some chilling theories about who was behind them, because they set the stage for perhaps the most consequential rise to power in modern history.

[Reporter]

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

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[Reporter]

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[Andrew Harding]

A mystery which matters.

[Helena Merriman]

I've been talking to journalists who were there in Russia during those brutal attacks, journalists who've spent big chunks of their careers trying to figure out who killed all of those innocent people.

[Reporter]

We are watching some kind of government conspiracy.

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A lot of what we should know has been classified or buried or covered up.

[Andrew Harding]

If it really happened, it's a story for the ages.

[Helena Merriman]

The journalists we brought together for this series don't all agree about what happened.

[Reporter]

It was quite clear that something very.

[Andrew Harding]

Dirty is going on.

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I would say that's a conspiracy theory. I've read the evidence.

[Andrew Harding]

Believe me, I'm very, very wary of conspiracies. But when it comes to the Kremlin, they've often proved to be true.

[Helena Merriman]

But there's one thing they do agree on asking questions about this story even now, can be dangerous.

[Andrew Harding]

He has been transferred to intensive care and he's on monitors. His immune system is gone.

[Helena Merriman]

It's a mystery some have died trying to solve.

[Guest Commentator]

We know their names, the people who've been killed. They all investigated the bombings and that message has reached the Russian public as well.

[Helena Merriman]

And that message is, that's dangerous.

[Guest Commentator]

Don't go there. You know you might end up dead.

[Helena Merriman]

I'm Helena Merriman and we are going there in the History Bureau. Putin and the Apartment Bombs Episode one the Four Bombs.

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[Andrew Harding]

1, 2, 3. Let me get to my Russian schlast. Ashaposha C the seller, Suku. That's a nursery rhyme. Is it designed to make babies say sh.

[Helena Merriman]

Okay, what does it mean?

[Andrew Harding]

Sasha went along the road licking a lolly, I think, or something like that.

[Helena Merriman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Harding]

So I'm Andrew Harding. Let me, let me think about this. I arrived in Moscow in 1991, age 24, thinking, let's go somewhere exciting to try and do this thing, be a foreign correspondent.

[Helena Merriman]

Why Russia?

[Andrew Harding]

I had a friend in Moscow and they allowed me to sleep on their floor. It was incredibly dramatic. You know, the Soviet Union was coming to an end. It was always in the news and I was very interested in what was happening.

[Helena Merriman]

And it's quite a place to land. This is 1991. Soviet Union is collapsing. You're in the middle of one of the biggest stories in the world. What was it like to experience that collapse happening in a day to day way?

[Andrew Harding]

It was so surreal because you walk through the center of Moscow and there are still these huge gray buildings with things like shoes and fruit written above them, you know, no advertising, very Soviet, very communist. There was so much optimism and a desire to become part of the west. And all these foreign fast food outlets were coming. Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Snickers bars everywhere. Somebody coined the phrase snickerizatia, the snickerization of our country.

[Helena Merriman]

Andrew's been a BBC foreign correspondent for over 30 years. But through the years, his time in Russia in the 90s, it's always stuck with him. Even now, he's still trying to make sense of it. This wild, unpredictable decade that ended with the four bombs and those bombs were about to get into them. But first you have to understand the years that led up to them. This time in Russia when history was playing at double speed. So when Andrew arrives In Moscow in 91, the Berlin Wall's just fallen. The Soviet empire collapsed. And he's living in a new country, Russia, a country that's just elected its first ever president.

[Reporter]

Many votes are still to be counted, but there is no doubt that Boris Yeltsin has become the first president of.

[Helena Merriman]

The Russian Boris Yeltsin. And at first, people love him. He's flamboyant, charismatic. He says he's going to shake things up, ditch the old Soviet economy, embrace capitalism, and fast track Russia into the 21st century. The problem was Yeltsin went too far too fast. Shock therapy, he called it. He freed prices. Overnight. Inflation soared to over 2000%. And the result, people's savings were wiped.

[Andrew Harding]

The old people, the pensioners, started to come out of their apartments and sell everything they had on the icy, snowy streets of Moscow. And they would be sitting there all day in these big fur coats, or if they'd sold their fur coats in thinner coats and hats, and people would walk past in the slush. It was really wretched and made a huge impression on me.

[Helena Merriman]

The Russian ruble collapsed and suddenly the only thing that mattered was dollars. And that changed everything. The jobs you could get, the places.

[Andrew Harding]

You could eat, restaurants didn't want to let you in unless you had dollars.

[Helena Merriman]

So you'd want to sort of queue up outside.

[Andrew Harding]

You literally do a $5 handshake with.

[Helena Merriman]

The doorman to bribe your way in.

[Andrew Harding]

Which was, you know, a source of great pride. You know, I bribed my way in somewhere. It felt very dramatic. And once you're Inside, for another $5, you could eat and drink all night. For $5, you could fly nine time zones to the far edge, near Alaska. The dollar was extraordinary. And of course, most people didn't have access to that.

[Helena Merriman]

Most people, except for a new breed of businessmen, the oligarchs, they got very rich very fast, buying up former state owned companies that knocked down prices. And as they got richer, they moved into politics, funneling money to Yeltsin, helping to keep him in power. But as Yeltsin and the oligarchs scavenged on Russia, the rest of the country was getting poorer. And by the late 90s, people had had enough. Where Russians had once lined the streets to support Yeltsin, now they wanted him gone. And Yeltsin, he was falling apart.

[Reporter]

Last week, President Yeltsin arrived a little unsteadily at a press conference. He's long had a reputation for boozing.

[Andrew Harding]

By the last few years of the 90s, Yeltsin was a shadow of himself.

[Reporter]

Yeltsin's hope for another term in office survive his latest illness, he was A.

[Andrew Harding]

Sort of shabby, pathetic figure, really drunk. Often when he wasn't drunk, he looked like he might be clearly struggling with his health. He spoke painfully, slowly.

[Helena Merriman]

What would Russians say to you when you interviewed them about this, about him?

[Andrew Harding]

They would say, we need somebody new. And every time he went in for an operation, it was this huge drama because would he survive the operation? Who does he hand the nuclear briefcase to? Who can he trust to be there when he comes around from anesthetic?

[Helena Merriman]

The problem was Yeltsin had no obvious successor and he was terrified that the next president might turn on him, take up one of the corruption scandals surrounding him and his family, and throw him in prison. The oligarchs were nervous too. They needed a new protector, someone who'd keep the money flowing.

[Andrew Harding]

These were gangs essentially competing for power. The stakes were incredibly high.

[Helena Merriman]

And what were they after? Power or money or both?

[Andrew Harding]

Well, the two sort of came hand in hand in a way. It was a real cowboy capitalism and it was very, very dangerous.

[Helena Merriman]

And so by the autumn of 99, you have a country with a failing president, no clear successor, and powerful men operating in the shadows, searching for a new leader they can trust. And it's at this point on September 4th that our story begins. It all starts in a town in southwest Russia, Buynaksk. It's remote, thousands of miles from Moscow, surrounded by mountains. And lining its streets, as in so many Russian cities, is a smattering of grey, identical buildings. Russia's apartment blocks. There's one apartment right next to a Russian military base. Five floors, small flats, kitchens just big enough for a table and two chairs, and TV sets, which tonight are showing a football match, a qualifier for Euro 2000, Russia versus Armenia. And the game is a good one for Russia. They win 2 nil. After the game, some of the families stay up to watch the news. Others bed down for the night. This is when the apartment is at its fullest. And this is when it happens. A truck parked outside the apartment. The apartment explodes, windows shatter, the building catches fire, and one by one, the five floors collapse. Soon the firefighters come, then the ambulances. And then from Russia, Andrew Harding reports. The journalists. Like Andrew Harding, Southern Russia is in turmoil tonight.

[Reporter]

Rescue workers have spent the day searching for survivors in this mound of rubble. It's all that remains of a block of flats torn apart by a massive car bomb. This 10 year old girl was dragged from the ruins, both legs crushed.

[Helena Merriman]

It takes a few days to find all the bodies in the rubble. The final count, 64 men, women and children.

[Reporter]

It's not clear yet what caused the blast, but the finger of suspicion is likely to point towards a group of militants who've been trying to drive Russian forces out of the region.

[Helena Merriman]

This first bomb makes the news, but only briefly. The explosion happened in a remote city near Chechnya, where militants and the Russian military have fought for years. So it's a tragic story, but it seems like more of the same, and the country moves on. A few days pass. It's now the 9th of September.

[Andrew Harding]

I was at home in my apartment in southern Moscow and I remember getting.

[Helena Merriman]

The call there'd been a second bomb, another apartment blown up.

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[Helena Merriman]

Second bomb explodes in the early hours of the morning when most people are asleep. But this time it's not in a remote, war torn part of the country. It's in the heart of Russia. In Moscow.

[Andrew Harding]

I remember rushing off with a cameraman Bob from the bureau and heading off to southeast suburbs and we arrived at the this giant pile of rubble. There were already police and There were these crowds around, people scrabbling in the dirt, people screaming, people just utterly traumatized. Everybody from the neighborhood was there a lot of them in their dressing gowns.

[Helena Merriman]

Could you see the insides of apartments?

[Andrew Harding]

There were some places, I do remember, where the front peeled off. It was almost like a doll's house, so you could see inside and you could see the layers that had been compressed as well.

[Reporter]

Rescue workers are continuing to hunt for survivors beneath the smoldering rubber, but hopes of finding anyone else alive are now fading.

[Helena Merriman]

In Russian news footage, you see firefighters in black uniforms. They're kneeling in the rubble, prising apart slabs of concrete as they search for bodies. Suddenly you see an arm, then a face, then an eye that twitches. This man is still alive. The firefighters scoop out the rubble around him, heave him into their arms, and they carry him away. He's naked except for a pair of green underpants.

[Andrew Harding]

I remember the dust and I remember the smell. There was just a mood of hysteria. You know, Russians were used to a certain degree of. They were used to mafia hits. They were used to all sorts of things, but this was not something that anybody in the city had seen.

[Helena Merriman]

Again, the counting begins. 94 dead. And this time with Moscow hit, the story breaks out. It's on every front page, every TV bulletin, every radio show. And the question everyone's asking, who did this?

[Reporter]

Our correspondent Andrew Harding is in Moscow.

[Helena Merriman]

Within days, people think they know who's to blame.

[Reporter]

Andrew, have the authorities there actually nailed the cause of this explosion? Is it now beyond doubt? Well, various obvious possibilities have sprung to everyone's mind. And the leading candidate is the Islamic militants, the Chechens, who are now fighting against Russian troops in the south of the country.

[Helena Merriman]

All over Russia, people are blaming them Chechen militants. And this was a terrifying thought for Russians, because if the Chechen militants had bombed two buildings already, then maybe they'd do it again.

[Reporter]

They have promised to wage the campaign against the Russians in every major city, including Moscow. And this is.

[Andrew Harding]

It was almost instinctive for people because they were the ones who Russia had been at war with.

[Helena Merriman]

And that war between Chechnya and the Russian state had been so brutal that people thought it could be reason enough for Chechen militants to blow up apartments full of Russian civilians. It all goes back to 1991. The Soviet Union was falling apart, different states breaking free and declaring independence. And Chechnya, a republic in the south of Russia, wanted that, too. It was partly about identity. Most Chechens are Muslim. But it was also about decades of brutal treatment by Russian leaders. So Chechnya declared independence, but Russia had no intention of letting Chechnya go.

[Reporter]

The Russians moved in at first light.

[Helena Merriman]

This morning, and they sent in the tanks. Hundreds.

[Reporter]

Hundreds of tanks and armored personnel carriers crossed the border, backed up by helicopters.

[Andrew Harding]

The Chechens responded with classic, provocative swagger and said, come and get us. We are Chechen. We are not afraid of this superpower army.

[Helena Merriman]

It was the first conflict Andrew ever covered.

[Andrew Harding]

I think my first visit would have been in the summer of 1994, and I would have driven over the mountains in my little Lada Neva jeep. I was just in love with this.

[Helena Merriman]

How did it deal with the rock?

[Andrew Harding]

Amazingly, because it was. It sort of bounced over. Everything was very light. The Soviet joke was that this was the thing that Soviet industry invented. Instead of fixing the roads, they came up with this amazing, small but mighty car that could drive over everything.

[Helena Merriman]

He drove all over the country, meeting Chechen fighters.

[Andrew Harding]

Chechnya was overrun by warlords armed to the teeth, just bristling with weapons. And we really had no idea what we were doing. I mean, we'd never covered anything like this.

[Helena Merriman]

He was there when the tanks rolled in, when Chechen women walked into the streets to try and stop them. And he was there in the capital, Grozny, when Russia tried to destroy the city.

[Andrew Harding]

The war for Grozny was just hell on earth. It was the most intense bombardments on a big city. And I to this day have never been more scared of anything.

[Helena Merriman]

And you've covered a lot of wars in your time.

[Andrew Harding]

It was insane. This was Russia's superpower, ex Soviet military, with every imaginable missile, mortar bombs, jets, helicopters, all targeting this city and pulverizing, I mean, the word is appropriate.

[Helena Merriman]

The war dragged on for two years. Thousands of Chechen civilians were killed, and there were reports of horrific abuses on both sides. It ended with a peace deal. But the Chechens didn't win their independence, so there was a sense of unfinished business, that a day of reckoning would come.

[Andrew Harding]

They kept that resentment, that anger against Moscow. It burned and it still burns.

[Helena Merriman]

And that anger in Chechnya, it became a fertile place for a new kind of extremism.

[Andrew Harding]

After all the bloodshed and all the chaos and misery of the first war, you could start to see a more militant Islamism starting to come in, starting to fund people, more shadowy figures emerging with their own power centers.

[Helena Merriman]

Chechen militants started taking hostages, aid workers, journalists, anyone they thought could bring in money or attention. And in one particularly brutal case, they kidnapped four foreign engineers. A few Months on, their bodies were found dumped by a roadside. All four had been decapitated. So when those first two bombs explode in 1999, this is why most Russians blame Chechen militants. And in the news reports, you can hear a deeper fear that this might just be the beginning.

[Reporter]

So are you saying that Russia is bracing itself now for some kind of wave of terrorist attacks from this source? I think that it is quite likely that that's going to happen. As long as neighboring Chechnya remains in a state of near anarchy, more turmoil in the region seems almost inevitable.

[Helena Merriman]

And sure enough, the blast happened before.

[Reporter]

Dawn, as the building's 150 residents lay sleeping.

[Helena Merriman]

Only a few nights later, at 5 in the morning on 13 September, an.

[Reporter]

Entire apartment block collapsed, leaving a scene of utter devastation. The death toll is rising by the minute. Rescuers.

[Helena Merriman]

The third bomb explodes again in Moscow. It's the third one to tear down an apartment in just nine days. And now the panic sets in.

[Reporter]

Russian police patrol the streets of Moscow. Yesterday's deadly explosion has triggered a massive security clamp down here. Every nook and cranny is being searched.

[Helena Merriman]

In Russia, almost everyone lives in these tall, precarious, prefab concrete apartments. And with the bombs exploding in the middle of the night, people are now too scared to sleep.

[Andrew Harding]

There was a sense that this is going to carry on, that we're all at risk now. People began to patrol every apartment block where they could to make sure it didn't happen to them the next night.

[Helena Merriman]

That night, Russia's latest prime minister, the fifth in 18 months, talks to the press. For most Russians, this is the first time they've ever seen their new prime minister speak. He's only been in the job a few weeks. He's short a forgettable face, and the only thing most people know about him is that he was, until very recently, the head of the fsb, Russia's internal security service, formerly the kgb. His name, Vladimir Putin. With President Boris Yeltsin nowhere to be seen, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has stepped into the light.

[Guest Commentator]

Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin blamed Islamic.

[Helena Merriman]

Militants for the attack and said that.

[Guest Commentator]

Russian forces would wipe out their bases.

[Helena Merriman]

In Chechnya, Putin offers comfort, but he also offers revenge. Says he'll go after the rabid animals who did this. Then, three days later, at five in.

[Reporter]

The morning, Volgodonsk in southern Russia hasn't experienced anything like it since the Second World War.

[Helena Merriman]

The fourth bomb explodes, demolishing an apartment building in Volgodonsk, a city hundreds of kilometers away from Moscow. It Rips the facade off a nine story building.

[Reporter]

Someone, somewhere in Russia is doing this, but no one knows who or why.

[Helena Merriman]

Once again, people are killed as they sleep. Two are children.

[Reporter]

The police are flooding the streets in the battle to beat the bombers. No stone is being left unturned. The building destroyed this morning had only been checked yesterday. Nowhere now is safe, nothing beyond suspicion.

[Helena Merriman]

At this point. All four of the bombs have gone off over a period of just 16 days. Four apartments have been blown up, killing some 300 people. But then this story takes a strange turn, one that people have been puzzling over ever since. Because there's a fifth bomb.

[Andrew Harding]

I remember this extraordinary news coming through that another bomb had been found in another apartment block. And then I remember it seemed almost instantaneous that there was a twist, just the worst possible twist.

[Helena Merriman]

And this fifth bomb, it doesn't explode. People find it. They call the police and the police, they follow the trail, A trail which ends up not with Chechen militants, but with the fsb, the Russian government security service formerly known as the kgb.

[Andrew Harding]

If it's true, it changes what Russia's sense of itself is. It changes everything if it's true.

[Helena Merriman]

Because the story of this fifth bomb is contested 25 years later, people are still arguing about it. But at the time, like so many Western journalists, Andrew didn't report on this twist. With so much going on, a bomb that, that didn't go off well, it didn't feel like a priority.

[Andrew Harding]

I think it's very difficult to. It's quite painful to confront that failure. All I can say is I think we should have done, we should have covered it more and we didn't, but.

[Helena Merriman]

A few journalists did.

[Guest Commentator]

The bombings were extremely suspicious. My premonition was that there was something very, very sinister going on.

[Helena Merriman]

Next time on Putin and the Apartment Bombs.

[Guest Commentator]

The problem is a problem of imagination. It's so evil, so horrible, so outside the normal comprehension of people. You have to believe the unbelievable. Once you understand that the impossible is really possible, everything makes perfect sense. But how many people, how many journalists, how many diplomats, how many political leaders are equipped to believe the unbelievable?

[Helena Merriman]

The History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs is a BBC Studios production, written and presented by me, Helena Merriman. The series producer is Sarah Shebier. Sound by Eloise Whitmore. And the executive editor is Annie Brown.

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