Free Republic

Beslan: the real international connection by Brendan O'Neill Commentators are desperately trying to make sense of what seem like senseless events in Beslan. But they are attempting to force it into political categories where it simply doesn't fit. Some have located the school siege in the broader bloody clash between Chechen nationalists and the Russian state. 'There can be no denying the direct link between the Beslan tragedy and the war in Chechnya', wrote Ahmed Zakaev, former deputy prime minister of Chechnya, in the UK Guardian. Others have rushed to blame Beslan on Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing that the...

The Chechens' American friends The Washington neocons' commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own John Laughland Wednesday September 8, 2004 The Guardian An enormous head of steam has built up behind the view that President Putin is somehow the main culprit in the grisly events in North Ossetia. Soundbites and headlines such as "Grief turns to anger", "Harsh words for government", and "Criticism mounting against Putin" have abounded, while TV and radio correspondents in Beslan have been pressed on air to say that the people there blame Moscow as much as...

Russian Toll in Chechnya Put at 12,000 Agence France Presse MOSCOW, 9 August 2003 — More than 12,000 Russian soldiers have died in the nearly four-year war in separatist Chechnya, almost triple the officially disclosed figure, the Soldiers’ Mothers Committee rights group said yesterday. Valentina Malnikova, a representative of the respected group, told Moscow Echo radio that the figures included soldiers who died on their way to a hospital or from injuries at a later date — deaths that are not officially registered by the authorities. The estimate suggests that on an average, nearly nine Russian soldiers have died daily...