I've just listened to a really interesting This American Life episode all about Russia and Putin. Link here:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/614/the-other-mr-president
They basically investigate the idea that Vladimir Putin (and possibly Boris Yeltsin) orchestrated the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia in order to justify starting the Second Chechen War.
One of the arguments on the podcast is that Chechnya had just won the first Chechen war and really had no real reason to commit these acts and possibly start up another conflict. I'm wondering how true that is.
Also if anyone has thoughts/opinions on the idea that Putin was behind the bombings in general, I would love to hear them. Thank you!
You might be interested in this conversation I had with a now-deleted user. I'll refer specifically to the answer I wrote.
An important issue Chechnya faced was that it technically did not win independence under the Khasavyurt Accord of 1996 or the peace treaty the following year. These agreements largely recognized the de facto situation on the ground until 2001, but Chechnya was far from receiving official recognition as an independent republic.
The internal situation of the republic, furthermore, was getting worse, not better, as rival armed groups clashed with each other and with the republic's government. Arguably one of the biggest industries in Chechnya at the time was kidnapping for ransom.
In any case, this lack of internal stability eventually spilled over Chechnya's borders when the Islamist warlord Shamil Basayev invaded neighboring Dagestan in order to spark a separatist rebellion there on August 7, 1999 (two days before Putin became Prime Minister). The situation resulted in an escalating armed conflict that included bombings in Dagestan, southern Russia, and Moscow itself.
When taken altogether: clearly the Republic of Chechnya wasn't in control of the armed forces based there, who had already started a new war with the Russian state that was rapidly escalating in intensity, and involving bombings of soft targets. It's important to understand the timeline because while Russian security forces did do some questionable things around the Ryazan incident and the Moscow apartment bombings - they at the very least destroyed evidence before proper investigations could be carried out - it's still far from Yeltsin and Putin orchestrating false flag incidents out of the blue in peacetime to start a war for political gain.