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Putin calls off Bush talks to handle crisis

By Julius Strauss

MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin, the poker-faced Russian president who has earned a reputation as an unflappable strongman, called off a meeting with George W Bush last night and marshalled his closest aides.

The man who came to power on a nationalist wave and instigated a vigorous military campaign to crush Chechen rebels was facing the gravest crisis of his 30-month tenure. Mr Putin’s administration has been claiming for months that the “operational” phase of the campaign to wipe out Chechen separatism is over.

Moscow propagandists have insisted it is only a matter of rebuilding civic institutions and fixing the shattered infrastructure in the tiny mountainous republic and all will be well.

That contention was given the lie on Wednesday night when the Chechen guerrillas stormed the Moscow theatre and took the entire audience hostage.

Despite the overbearing presence of security forces in Moscow and a semi-official policy of harassing central Asians and Caucasians, Mr Putin’s police had been dramatically upstaged.

Muscovites were left wondering yesterday how two vans carrying gunmen behind smoked glass windows had been allowed to speed through the city centre without being challenged. Mr Putin’s first task now is to reassure Russians that he is capable of dealing effectively with the crisis.

The electorate is notoriously mercurial and the former KGB spy’s 70 per cent approval rating will plummet if he is seen as out of touch. When the nuclear submarine Kursk went down with all hands in 2000 the president was criticised for refusing to cut short his holiday on the Black Sea coast and join grieving relatives.

This time, as news of the attack broke, he sped straight to the Kremlin and invited in television cameras as he assembled his security ministers and closest advisers. Pro-Kremlin media showed frequent clips of Mr Putin’s meetings with officials and religious leaders, including two Muslim muftis who condemned the terrorists.

There were even rumours that the president would travel to the scene of the siege, in a drab Moscow housing estate barely three miles from the Kremlin.

Addressing the nation, Mr Putin sought to set distance between the attack and his failed policies in Chechnya.

He said: “This action was carefully planned somewhere abroad in a centre of terrorism. Most probably it is linked with Al Qaeda and directly supported by them.”

If Mr Putin appears to have learnt his public relations lessons from the Kursk debacle, his second task, of ending the hostage crisis, will be a greater test of his leadership.

His supporters expect him to take a tough stance against the Chechen men and women who have so brazenly struck at the heart of the capital.

Equally, Muscovites are terrified that security forces will attempt a heavy-handed rescue attempt and botch it.

When Chechen guerrillas seized a southern Russian hospital in 1995, the rescue operation resulted in the deaths of more than 100 hostages before the kidnappers finally escaped.

Although Russia still has millions of men under arms, its special forces have a patchy record, particularly in hostage stand-offs.

For now, it seems that Mr Putin will remain cautious. Officials said Russian forces would not move in unless the terrorists begin executing hostages.

But he will be aware that the longer the stand-off drags on the greater is the risk that he will be personally blamed. —LDT

The rebel leader

Movsar Barayev, named as the hostage-takers’ leader by a rebel Chechen website, is a member of one of the region’s most brutal clans. Russian intelligence believes he has taken over Arby Barayev’s group of several hundred men who follow an extremist Wahhabite Islamic movement. Movsar is believed to be around 25 years old and from the town of Mesker-Yurt, 12 miles southeast of Grozny. —LT

Republic at war

Chechnya, a 5,000 square mile mountainous region, is on Russia’s southern border with Georgia. It was forcibly incorporated into the Russian Empire during the mid-19th century despite fierce resistance from the predominantly Muslim population. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, Chechnya declared independence. In response Boris Yeltsin launched the first Chechen war. Between 1994 and 1996, about 35,000 people died. The 1996 peace deal gave the region limited autonomy. In 1998, following bombings in Moscow, Vladimir Putin launched the second Chechen war. The Russian Army has been bogged down since and a further 12,000 people have died. Chechnya is a crucial route for oil from the Caspian sea. —LT

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