Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [98]
A couple of days later, Felshtinsky went to see Sasha again. He did not tell him about the split between Boris and Putin, but he did recap his conversation with Khokholkov.
“I don’t believe that Boris will be able to protect you for long, Sasha,” he said. “You yourself said that Putin should not be trusted. I suggest you consider leaving the country. Think about it seriously. Emigration is not a picnic, but it is better than sitting in jail, not to mention lying dead in a ditch.”
“What am I going to do abroad? I don’t speak any languages.” “With your talents … you can at least drive a cab … or we could write a book together. All your stories, they deserve to be told.” Sasha was hesitant, but they agreed that if and when he was ready to go, he would let Felshtinsky know, and Felshtinsky would come help him flee on short notice.
Moscow, September 7: At a press conference on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Moscow apartment bombings, the head of antiterrorism at the FSB says that investigators consider the “Chechen version” to be the most likely explanation of the attacks. He names as principal suspects Achemez Gochiyayev, Yusuf Krymshamkhalov, Timur Batchayev, and Adam Dekkushev. All four are believed to be hiding in Chechnya. They are “members of a radical Islamic sect.” Their ringleader, Gochiyayev, is named as the man who had rented basement apartments in the buildings where the bombs were planted. He was allegedly paid $500,000 for masterminding the blasts by a Wahhabi warlord named Amir Khattab.
By September 2000 Felshtinsky was deeply absorbed in a new project, hopefully a book, about the role of the FSB in provoking the second Chechen War. He had collected everything that had been printed about it, in English or Russian. The commonly accepted version was that the war had been provoked by the invasion of Dagestan by Wahhabi warlords in August, followed by the apartment bombings in September 1999. Felshtinsky was pretty convinced that the bombings were the work of the FSB. But there were some loose ends in the story that had never been resolved.
First, there was a statement by Prime Minister Stepashin that the planning for the war had begun in March. Second, there was the “transcript” of Berezovsky’s conversation with Udugov, in May, about Wahhabi plans to invade Dagestan. Third, there were speculations concerning whether Boris himself could have been involved in the blasts. Most of them appeared in Russian tabloids and could be discounted. However, one such statement came from none other than George Soros, who, in an article in the New York Review of Books earlier that year, wrote, “I could not quite believe” Boris was involved in the bombings, but “still, I could not rule it out.” Soros referred to a conversation he had with Boris about Chechen terrorists that gave rise to this speculation. Felshtinsky called me, as someone who could shed light on Soros.
His call was not completely unexpected; sooner or later, I figured, I would be dragged into the squabble between George and Boris. I worked for George and yet was a friend of Boris’s. I was in an awkward position, but somehow I had managed to avoid loyalty conflicts. Perhaps I should not have introduced them to each other, I thought, but it was too late. Soon I would have to choose between them.
“It is sheer nonsense,” I told Felshtinsky, when he asked about Soros’s speculation. “The conversation with Boris was in my presence. The only thing Boris told him was how he got some hostages from Raduyev in exchange for his Patek Philippe. He was in the government at the time. But why don’t you ask Boris himself? He’s in New York.”
Felshtinsky