I never claimed that he set them up. I believe that just like the Moscow theater, a deliberate calculation was made, and lives became expendable.
Since then, this issue has become Putin's Reichstag fire.
God forbid that we ever have a situation like the Moscow theater or the Beslan school in the United States.
I'll guarantee that we would also have similar loss of life.
And I will never stoop to the despicable level of blaming the heroes. I know who is to blame for both Beslan and the Moscow theater atrocities, and they are all Chechens.
Let's start with Mashkadov. Then we can go on to Shamil Besayev. Are you claiming that these are KGB (sic) operatives? Or that they are in the pay of Putin?
I don't happen to think that Putin is making a smart move with his pulling power to the center. It's not going to work and is anti-democratic. But to go from there to laying blame at his feet for things that properly belong at the feet of Mashkadov and Besayev is just- well, it's despicable.