Newsweek | Power, for Vladimir Putin, has always been closely linked to
terrorism. Back in 1999, as an unknown and untried prime minister, he
first showed Russians his steely character after a series of unexplained
bombings demolished four apartment buildings and killed more than 300
people. Putin, in his trademark brand of clipped tough-talk, announced
that the those responsible would be “rubbed out, even if they’re in the
outhouse,” and launched a renewed war against the breakaway republic of
Chechnya. The resulting wave of approval, stoked by fear of terrorism,
carried Putin to the presidency months later.
Eighteen years on
and Putin has fulfilled his promise by rubbing out many thousands of
extremists—with his army in Chechnya and all over the North Caucasus,
via Federal Security Service assassins in Turkey and Yemen, and most
recently from the air and by the hand of special forces in Syria. What’s
more, he has expanded the definition of extremists to
include not just Islamist militants but also Ukrainian filmmakers and
gay activists who share digitally altered images of Putin in garish
makeup on social media. Nonetheless, as the deadly bombing in St.
Petersburg’s metro on April 2 showed, neither violence nor repression
has put an end to terrorist attacks in Russia.
