This is crazy. Russia, like the US, was intimidated by Islamic attacks carried out by people living there, most of them even citizens.
So even after a few vicious attacks on civilians, Russia thought it would be more prudent to try to buy them off.
Sound familiar?
All this did was empower the Muslims, and the same is true with us. We only attacked secular ME dictators (who actually permitted other religions and non-Islamic lifestyles) and honored or didn’t bother Muslim dictators because we were afraid of them.
And that’s where this policy leads us.
I remember long before 9/11, Moscow was terrorized by Muslim terrorists burning buildings etc. I thought at the time that Russia would take care of the thugs in no time at all and we wouldn’t have to experience what they were going through. Turned out not to be true...as we found out on 9/11.