Strongman, The

shooting hostages.
    For the next three days Putin was locked in almost constant crisis meetings with his security chiefs. At the first session the siloviki proposed storming the building, while the prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, sharply disagreed, calling for talks with the terrorists in order to avoid casualties. According to Kasyanov, the security chiefs argued there was no point in making concessions because casualties would be unavoidable in any case. Putin was scheduled to travel to Mexico for a summit of Asian and Pacific leaders, but sent Kasyanov in his place. Some have suggested the decision was taken in order to remove from the process the only man opposed to using force to free the hostages, but even Kasyanov concedes that there was no way Putin himself could have left the country at that point (especially in the light of the criticism he earned over his response to the Kursk disaster). 4 President Yeltsin had gone to a G7 meeting in Halifax, Canada, in the middle of the Budyonnovsk hostage crisis in 1995, leaving his prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, to negotiate with the captors and allow them to escape. Putin certainly was not going to repeat that mistake.
    A number of politicians and journalists (including Anna Politkovskaya) did try to reason with the hostage-takers, but to no avail. In the end the siloviki did it their way. Special forces pumped an anaesthetic gas into the theatre to sedate the terrorists (and the hostages), and then commandoes stormed in. There was a gun-fight, in which all of the terrorists were killed, including those who had already been knocked out by the gas. But 130 hostages also died – mostly from the effects of the toxic chemical and the failure to provide them with immediate medical care when they were brought out of the building. There was much criticism of the action, including the fact that the chemical composition of the gas used was so secret that even medics attending the scene were not told what it was or what antidote could be used, almost certainly worsening the death toll.
    Putin later defended his actions, saying hundreds of lives had been saved. And in truth, no government in the world has ever worked out a perfect way to cope with such a situation. But had the strongmen really taken enough care to protect the hostages’ lives? Or were they more intent on killing the terrorists? When the Kursk sank it is assumed that Putin turned down foreign offers of help primarily because he did not want NATO rescuers poking around a top-secret Russian nuclear submarine. The chemical agent used to end the theatre siege was also a military secret, the exact formula of which was never revealed.
    The big issue that the Russian authorities refuse to face up to is what motivates the terrorists. Is it, as Putin always claims, part of an international Islamist movement, with its roots in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or is it a vengeful response to Russia’s vicious attempts to subjugate Chechnya since 1994? The answer can be found in some of the gunmen’s answers to Anna Politkovskaya during the theatre siege. She asked one of the captors to release the older children from the theatre (the younger ones had been released). ‘Children?’ came the response. ‘There are no children in there. In security sweeps you take ours from 12 years old. We will hold on to yours.’
    ‘In retaliation?’ Politkovskaya asked.
    ‘So that you know how it feels.’
    Politkovskaya asked if she can at least bring food for the children.
    ‘Do you let ours eat in the security sweeps? Yours can do without too.’
    Taming the oligarchs
    In his first address to the nation, 12 hours after becoming acting president, Putin had pledged to respect freedom of speech, freedom of the mass media and property rights. On 28 July 2000 he had a showdown with the country’s top 20 businessmen and bankers to explain what he meant, and set out the new rules of the game.
    These were men who had acquired vast fortunes during the Yeltsin years by exploiting every loophole, breaking and bending laws, bribery, thuggery, extortion, and, most simply of all, by helping themselves to companies and resources offered to them in exchange for ensuring Yeltsin’s political survival. They owned the country’s major oil and gas companies, pipelines, aluminium smelters, telecoms and advertising, automobile plants, iron and steel works, a brewery and the top banks. Mingling with them in a grand, columned Kremlin hall as they