'' Blowing Up Russia : Terror from Within '' ( , FSB blows Russia up ) is a book written by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky . The authors describe the Russian apartment bombings as a false flag operation that was guided by the Russian Federal Security Service to justify the Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power . The story was initially printed by Yuri Shchekochikhin in a special issue of '' Novaya Gazeta '' in August 2001 and published as a book in 2002 . In Russia the book was prohibited because it divulged state secrets , and it was included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials . However , it was published in more than twenty other countries and translated into twenty languages
Russian apartment bombings
Russian apartment bombings
Blowing Up Russia