Word: russianizing
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...horrifying carnage that ended the hostage crisis at a school in Beslan, in southern Russia, was a gruesome reminder of the abject failure of President Vladimir Putin's own "war on terror." At least 320 people are reported to have been killed Friday after Russian troops stormed a school to free more than 1,000 civilians, mostly women and children, held captive by a group of masked Chechen gunmen demanding that the authorities free their jailed comrades. As Russians reeled from the impact of a savage terror assault on children, President Putin on Saturday visited the scene and promised...
...bloodbath at Beslan came scarcely a week after twin suicide-bombings brought down two Russian airliners and a third wrought havoc outside a Moscow subway station, leaving more than 100 dead. The latest wave of attacks appeared calculated to mock President Putin's claim that he had defeated the Chechen separatist insurgency, and that the situation in the rebel region had was returning to normal following the election of Moscow's handpicked candidate as president of the region, in a poll widely criticized by observers. Indeed, the election was necessitated by the fact that Moscow's previous pick to lead...
...Russian observers see the latest wave of attacks as further evidence of a qualitative shift in the conflict. Putin's crackdown, which began with a full-scale military invasion of Chechnya in 1999, has not only failed to deliver on his promise to eliminate the nationalist rebellion in the largely Muslim territory; it has altered the nature of that rebellion, hardening its fighters, narrowing the differences between secular nationalists and radical Islamists, and putting the Islamists in the driving seat. Having failed to drive Russian forces out of Chechnya via guerrilla warfare, the rebels have resorted to a wider offensive...
...Observers believe the rampant corruption in the poorly-paid Russian armed forces has contributed to the mobility of the Chechen fighters - wads of cash (raised through criminal extortion or donations from jihadi-sympathizers abroad) has often proven a more effective weapon than a rocket launcher in the hands of separatist fighters looking to break through Russian lines. The heavy-handed tactics of Moscow's forces has alienated even many of those Chechens who had initially welcomed their arrival as deliverance from the violent chaos of criminality and warlordism that had prevailed under the de facto independence won from Moscow...
...helm. Even in its most explicitly jihadist form, Chechen terrorism is a homegrown affair, although factions of the Chechen separatist movement have received financial and political support from Qaeda-aligned elements abroad - and a handful of Arab mujahedeen have long played a role in the Chechen insurgency. The Russian crackdown, which began late in 1999 as Putin sent in troops to reverse the autonomy granted the region by former President Boris Yeltsin following a series of unsolved apartment bombings in Moscow - a brutal campaign that struck a popular chord and served as the would-be president's introduction to Russian...