When the Kremlin presented a new Prime Minister in the summer of 1999, the surprise was great.

Because the man, who was also chosen as the crown prince to succeed President Boris Yeltsin, was largely unknown.

Vladimir Putin, head of the domestic secret service FSB, was considered a political nobody at the time.

Hardly anyone believed him capable of doing what he was chosen for: protecting Yeltsin and his entourage from the loss of their wealth and criminal prosecution, while at the same time inflicting a defeat on the Kremlin's then-enemies who wanted to seize power.

They were the popular former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov and the ambitious Moscow mayor Yuriy Luzhkov.

The new head of government seemed to have no chance against them.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Markus Wehner

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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But Putin had an advantage.

He was ready to wage war.

After the devastating armed conflict in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996, the Russians were not in the mood for another war, because the most recent one had ended in an ignominious defeat by the small Caucasus republic.

But dramatic events in September changed this mood.

On September 4, a bomb exploded in a military settlement in the city of Buynaksk in the Republic of Dagestan, killing 64 people.

Just four days later, an explosive device destroyed a block of flats on Guryanov Street in a southern Moscow suburb, killing 94 people.

The Russian capital was in shock.

Panic spread when another block of flats on Kashira Avenue in Moscow was completely destroyed by an explosion four days later.

This time there were 119 fatalities.

After another attack on a residential building in Volgodonsk, southern Russia, on September 18, the total number of victims rose to more than 360.

Did the Russian secret service carry out the attacks themselves?

In all cases, the explosive hexogen was identified as a crime.

Although there was no evidence, the FSB's investigations immediately turned to Chechen perpetrators.

During the years of its de facto independence, the Caucasus republic had brought to light the arbitrary rule of military clan leaders, armed groups spread fear and terror, and the number of kidnappings used to extort money ran into the hundreds.

Anger and indignation were correspondingly great.

However, there were soon doubts as to whether Chechen perpetrators had actually carried out the devastating attacks.

One incident in particular in the city of Ryazan, 200 kilometers south of Moscow, fueled the suspicion that it was an operation by the FSB itself to change the mood in the country.

There, men were seen carrying three sacks into the basement of a residential building and then driving away in a car with number plates taped up.

The alerted police found hexogen in the sacks, and the demolition expert also found a military detonator.

The approximately 250 residents were quickly taken out of the house into a cinema at night.