Getting Ugly in Russia

[DanaC]

It may make you look like a lunatic fringe and it is arguably wrong, though right and wrong seem to take something of a backseat whenever wars become entrenched but it has already had an effect. The spotlight is again on Putin and the Chechens. This is the issue which is most dangerous to Putin ( at the moment) The families of soldiers who have been conscripted to deal with the Chechens have already begun to voice their dismay at both the conditions their sons and daughters serve under and against the futility of the fight they are sent to. Every time a Chechen terrorist dies for their cause with a bombbelt around their waste and a prayer on their lips it hits the headlines, it increases the sense of fear and uncertainty and the people look to their strong man Putin to resolve the problem of Chechnya. So far his attempts have not been successful, but the expertly stagemanaged fearsome response which sends their young ones to die fighting people they dont really care about in a land they dont feel attached to anymore quietens the grumbling.

When the Black Widows staged a siege in the theatre Putin's response was to order a rescue mission which led to half the hostages dying, not at the hands of the Widows but at the hands of the rescuers. This is expected. A strongman is respected in Russia a negotiator much less so. What has made this siege interesting ( just to be entirely callous and look at the strategic situation rather than with the emotional response to an emotionally charged issue) is that Putin has been forced not to follow the Strongman response formula. His nation has all it's eyes turned to the school and the safety of those children is paramount. Unlike most sieges the hostage takers have resfused medical aid and food supplies. This is contrary to the usual pattern in which the hostage takers demand supplies and the negotiators make comparitive demands for a goodwill gesture, such as freeing the injured or the women or children. Right from the start this puts them on a much stronger footing than many hostage takers in other sieges.

Instead they have retained all the cards and have given up 32 ( I think) of their hostages, mainly the youngest children without attempting to secure supplies or anything else of that nature. They have demonstrated their power over the hostages by freely choosing to let some of them go. This lends frightening credibility to the idea that they would ( as they have stated) kill 50 children for any one of their people who are killed ( for instance by sniper) and that any attempt to storm the building ( the usual Russian response to hostage situations, which is effective but does lead to many hostages dying in the process) would result in them detonating the explosives which they wear thereby killing everyone in the school.

The truth is we dont know if they really would go through with that threat, they may even be bluffing. Either way Putin cannot risk engaging in tactics which could lead to the wholesale slaughter of a school of children, therefore he is trapped into alllowing some kind of negotiation with the terrorists and as such the terrorists have already made progress ( in their goals) This time, Putin cannot play the strongman without being seen to place children at risk, that in itself reduces him slightly in the national consciousness.

On a more general level the increase in terrorist attacks on the Russian people is making people nervous. They are likely (given the growing mutterings) to come to the conclusion that Chechnya is not worth the price the Cechens are charging.

Therefore in the longrun such activity whilst marking them to the world as lacking credibility may indeed be the thing which frees them from the yolk.