And he was correct. There are a number of Americans supporting the idea of chechnya becoming a state of its own. Chechnya is part of Russia. Putin was correct that there are Americans who are financing the war from the chechen side. If chechnya is independent of Russia, that would be a chunk carved from Russia.
Putin is also correct in that a number of prominent Americans would like to see Russia carved into many smaller states. Brzezinsky and Halfbright are two of them.
There is nothing hard or surprising about this statement, but perhaps you need to see it as not aimed at Bush, which it was not.
Exactly the same people who helped breakup of Yugoslavia and handed Kosovo to the Muslims.