Putin’s Medieval Peace Pact in Chechnya
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The involvement of two ethnic Chechens in the Boston Marathon bombing came as a brutal reminder of the wars that ravaged the Russian republic more than a decade ago. Less understood is that they aren’t over.
Vladimir Putin said when he first ran for president in 2000 that his “historic mission” was to resolve the situation in the North Caucasus. To do so, he oversaw a second war in Chechnya, already devastated by Russia’s failed attempt to subdue the republic in 1994-1996.