Ryazan Again? Now with Nuclear Plants?

In 1998 Vladimir Putin was the director of the FSB. The country was engaged in a conflict with Chechnya which had declared independence in 1991. Our policymakers, first President Bill Clinton and later George W Bush, decided to treat that conflict as internal. There was no recognition of Chechnya as an independent country.

This we read in Blowing up Russia:

In any case, by 1994, the political leadership of Russia was already aware that it could not afford to grant Chechnya independence like Belarus and Ukraine. To grant Chechnya sovereign status could pose a genuine threat for the disintegration of Russia. But could they afford to start a civil war in the Northern Caucasus? The “party of war,” based on the military and law enforcement enforcement ministries, believed that they could afford it, as long as the public was prepared for it, and it would be easy enough to influence public opinion, if the Chechens were seen to resort to terrorist tactics in their struggle for independence. All that was needed was to arrange terrorist attacks in Moscow and leave a trail leading back to Chechnya.

The campaign worked, and people died. It did create the rally around the flag effect. It also destroyed Boris Yeltsin and stopped the democratization of Russia. The last two were the policy goals of the security services.