An explosion and fire ripped through an electricity substation (Chagino) south-east of Moscow. The damage caused a cascade of power failures that swept through the city. Lights, water, the stock-exchange, subways, etc were knocked out as engineers rapidly disconnected systems to prevent equipment failure. The economic damage to Moscow from this extended outage will be substantial (but not critical unless it becomes routine -- see Urban Takedowns for more). Additionally, the government suffered damage to its legitimacy.
Initial reports were that the explosion at the substation was due to dilapidated equipment. However, earlier Global Guerrilla analysis (see Chechen Independence parts 1 and 2 for more) anticipated a Chechen adoption of the tactics and strategies of system disruption. This analysis was partially confirmed by an e-mail from Shamil Basayev, the Chechen guerrilla leader and professional revolutionary, to Kavkaz Center (an excellent example of Guerrilla news and PR management). In this e-mail, Basayev claims credit for the attack. Most interestingly, the note indicates that Basayev's group is doing heavy analysis of the attack's impact.