Russian President Vladimir Putin's image was almost bound to take a blow from the bloody end to Russia's latest hostage seizure, according to senior Russian politicians and commentators on Saturday. It could also lead to pressure on civil liberties in Russia and new tensions between the government and the media, they argued.
"It doesn't matter how many people were saved. Everything depends on the number killed and wounded," said Vladimir Lukin, Russia's commissioner for human rights. "It is also not clear how the denouement started. Did they storm the building?"
Lukin, a former Russian ambassador to the US, said there were new worries about how the government would react.
"Fighting terrorism shouldn't lead to state terrorism. We had that under Stalin. Some people fear this could lead to a more authoritarian form of government."
Lukin was attending a high-level conference of Russian and foreign officials and analysts in the northern city of Novgorod.
Others said the Russian president was bound to be blamed for the seizure of the school in the first place. It came in a week in which suicide bombers were allowed to board civilian airliners and blow them up, and others set off explosives at a bus stop and a metro station in Moscow.
"Although the building was just a school and could not easily be expected to be a target, many people will say that Putin is indirectly to blame. The event will be seen as a sign of the incompetence of the security organs and the police," Vitaly said. "This was what people wanted after the theater siege in Moscow which went wrong two years ago, but almost nothing was done. This time Putin must show firmness even to people who are friends from his own period as a security man in the KGB," he said.
Alexei Salmin, the chairman of the national committee of political sociology, said Putin's rating had been falling since his re-election in March. The Beslan drama would not reverse the decline, however many people were saved.
"Much depends on how Putin interprets the event and what he says and does. Public opinion is quite volatile in moments like this, particularly when children are affected," he said. "The number of victims isn't the main thing. It's the number of children."
The reaction in Northern Ossetia and other parts of the Caucasus could be very sharp, several Russian analysts feared. It could also lead to ethnic tensions in Moscow and other cities with large Chechen populations.
Putin has made his reputation on being tough on terrorism, but during his five years in power the war in Chechnya has shown no sign of winding down and the number of car bombs and suicide attacks on soft targets in Russian cities has risen sharply.
Russian liberals worry that the solution will mainly involve putting new pressure on the press so that it does not ask awkward questions or point out the failures of Putin's policies. But no one has a clear answer.
Vitaly Tretyakov said he saw no merit in the argument that giving Chechnya independence would help. "I don't believe that letting Chechnya go and putting a fence round it will reduce the attacks. It used to be a popular idea, but fewer believe in it nowadays" he said.
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