1998 Abduction of Foreign Engineers in Chechnya - Suspects

Suspects

At the time of the abduction many of the region's warlords were in open revolt against the ChRI government of Maskhadov, and several analysts interpreted the abductions as a political act. Maskhadov himself blamed the atrocity on the "foreign special services" and their Chechen henchmen, hinting at a possible involvement of Russian special services using Chechen "bandits" to destabilise the breakaway territory. A similar opinion was voiced later by the Chechen commander Ruslan Gelayev, who in an interview for the BBC said that the act was provocation organized by "men trained by the Russian special services" as a part of an alleged plot to turn the public opinion of neighboring nations and the world against Chechnya. The British investigation at the time surmised that the four were the victims of "warring mercenary factions." Aid worker and writer Jonathan Littell speculated that it was the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation that outbid the employers of kidnapped workers to get them beheaded by Barayev and his gang, rather than be released. Later, the video and photographic materials of this and other Chechnya executions helped in FSB propaganda efforts during the start of the Russian invasion of Chechnya in 1999.