Putin has firmly ruled out any negotiations with Chechen rebels, insisting that the war-battered region is returning to normalcy under the Kremlin's twin programs of vesting increasing authority in elected Chechen officials and law enforcement services and reconstruction.
The Federal Security Service's spokesman in Chechnya, Major-General Ilya Shabalkin, said authorities had known "long ago" that Basayev was responsible for the series of attacks.
RSS