Not going to listen. I am a long term Russian linguist for the DoD and State Department, lived over there and did a missionary (baptist) tour over there. Beslan created Putin and kept him in power all these years.
Putin was in charge but Beslan cemented him as the strong man who would protect the Russian people. And he did till this debacle in Ukraine.
I hadn’t thought of Beslan as being the thing that “made” Putin, but it makes sense. It seems to me (a distant observer) that he became a strongman rather than just being a President around that time probably because he knew he could get away with it. I read somewhere that Russia’s recent exploits in Syria also boosted Putin’s popularity. I’m not a Putin fan, just trying to connect the dots.
I remember Posner from the old Radio Moscow days. I guess once a shill, always a shill.