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In has address, Putin acknowledged that Russia's law enforcement and judicial systems are corrupt and inefficient. Again, one can only agree, recalling the Yukos case and many other instances of blatant judicial bias.
Elsewhere in his prepared address, however, Putin referred to unnamed, hostile foreign powers that "think that Russia, as one of the greatest nuclear powers of the world, is still a threat, and this threat has to be eliminated." Terrorism, Putin said, "is only an instrument to achieve these goals." Since al-Qaida and other Islamist extremists couldn't possibly be threatened by Russia's nuclear arsenal, Putin was apparently referring to the West.
Putin said that although the Soviet Union had disintegrated, "the nucleus of that giant" was preserved. "We have called the new country the Russian Federation." His remarks seem to imply that present-day Russia is not a country in its own right, and that it could just as well be called something else. This falls into line with the praise for the Soviet past, and for Josef Stalin in particular, in programs on state television and in newly revised history textbooks used in the schools. For Putin, Stalin seems to be something of a role model.
In the Stalin era, anything that went wrong in the Soviet Union was blamed on foreign powers and their agents. The country, like Stalin himself, was paranoid and xenophobic. Putin seems to suffer from the same sickness, and is doing his best to make the entire nation paranoid along with him.
In his address, Putin promised to prepare "a complex of measures aimed at strengthening the unity of our country." He also pledged "to create a new system of forces and means for exercising control over the situation in the North Caucasus" and an "effective crisis management system." Such measures will mostly likely involve the further restriction of civil liberties, elimination of the few remnants of a free press and enhanced powers for the secret police -- all in the name of fighting terrorism.
Two prominent journalists critical of Putin, Andrei Babitsky and Anna Politkovskaya, were prevented from traveling to Beslan last week. Politkovskaya was apparently poisoned. Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muradov told me that she is currently recovering from kidney and liver damage.
Stalin regularly used the secret police to harass or murder critics and opponents. The plight of Babitsky and Politkovskaya indicates that in Putin's neo-Stalinist Russia, the same methods will be used to eliminate terrorists and their "sympathizers."
Journalists are easy targets, but terrorism in Russia will only be bolstered by repression. Many in Chechnya and Ingushetia view the terrorists as freedom fighters. Only political dialogue can change their thinking. But Putin's address contained no reference to holding negotiations with anyone.
During the Beslan siege, the authorities deliberately and consistently lied about the true number of hostages taken, reducing the numbers to make the crisis appear less grave and the imminent attack by special forces less reckless. As they did in 2002 during the Dubrovka theater siege in Moscow, the authorities deliberately refused to negotiate with the hostage-takers. They did not reveal that the terrorists' only condition for releasing the children was for Putin to sign a decree on removing Russian forces from Chechnya.
A piece of paper could have saved hundreds of lives. Instead, a bloody attack by the Russian military and special forces was carried out to demonstrate Putin's resolve.
Terrorists in Russia display a blatant disregard for human life, and the Kremlin does the same. The victims of terrorism and the wrath of the state -- all of us, potentially -- are left in the middle with no protection.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent Moscow-based defense analyst.