1999 attacks

The 1999 attacks matter here chiefly as a disputed memory that shapes Eduard Limonov’s response to a later hostage crisis. While watching coverage of the 2002 Moscow theater siege from his cell in Saratov, he recalls rumors that the earlier attacks had not been committed by Chechens but by the Federal Security Service, with Vladimir Putin’s endorsement. The passage presents this as a suspicion, not as an established account of who was responsible.

The Attacks as a Recalled Suspicion

The reference surfaces as Limonov watches the news during the theater hostage crisis. He fears from the outset that the confrontation will end in a bloodbath; after the gas attack, he suspects officials are lying about the number of dead and that little was done to save them. In that atmosphere, the remembered rumors about 1999 connect two episodes in his mind through a common question: whether the state’s public account of political violence can be trusted.

Political Meaning in the Later Crisis

The recollection also marks a change in Limonov’s language about Putin. As the president declares that Russia will not be intimidated by terrorism regardless of the losses, Limonov’s suspicion turns into open denunciation: he calls Putin a fascist, which the narrator identifies as the first time he had used the word negatively. The passage therefore shows the 1999 attacks not through a separate account of their circumstances, but through their later role in Limonov’s distrust of official explanations and his increasingly direct opposition to Putin.