“Good news. It will keep Putin busy”...
No, it won’t.
I’m sure that they will be crushed very quickly and in a manner so that the great-grandchildren of the people in that area will discuss the “measured response” in hushed tones.
And in the long run, FAR FEWER innocent people will suffer and die.
They already have arranged Islamic marriages under the government of Chechnya, Russia won’t interfere and that is in Russia. They have 25 million Muslims in Russia, good luck thinking Super-Putin is going to change everything.
Not even close, Russia is in trouble.
Putin will not let things slip into barbarism—they will be crush as hard as Stalin would have done long ago. And it will make Putin more popular with the masses of Russians.