Russian to the Core

Don't count on it. Those who know Putin say the former KGB man shrinks from taking on the country's entrenched political interests. Putin last year long hesitated to fire a well-connected Cabinet minister accused of corruption. "What if he says no?" a close aide to the President said, explaining his hesitation. Rather than fix things, Putin has preferred to intimidate media outlets in an effort to quash negative coverage of the government. The Kremlin threatened last week to shut down NTV, a television network that occasionally shows flashes of independence despite being owned by the state-controlled natural-gas monopoly. The Kremlin's anger was sparked by two NTV journalists whose coverage had deviated from the official line. In the Russian heartland, most viewers already receive nothing but pro-government broadcasts. Says analyst Ryabov: "In the provinces they only have the victorious images on their TV screens to watch, and they rally to embrace the idea of a strong country emerging from the ashes once again."

Putin is already using that resurgent nationalism to build support for a new offensive in Chechnya. He rose to power in 1999 on the strength of a pledge to "rub out" the Chechen terrorists. "He has strong feelings about Chechnya," says a senior State Department official. "We just say the word, and he hits the roof." The Bush Administration says it supports a political solution to the conflict, but Washington hasn't pushed Putin to compromise — in part because he equates the Russian struggle against Chechen rebels with the Administration's war against al-Qaeda.

But Putin's war is going nowhere. Russian soldiers in Chechnya have killed more than 13,000 Chechen rebels since 1999, but the brutality of the army's tactics has spawned new, more fanatical fighters faster than it has eliminated the old ones. Before the hostage siege, 57% of the public supported talks with the rebels; last week that number had slipped, but not by much, to 44%. Even without a broad mandate, Putin is likely to exploit the terrorist threat to renew the military campaign and crush the Chechen leaders he loathes. In Copenhagen last week, Danish authorities acting at Russia's behest arrested Akhmed Zakayev, the relatively moderate representative of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. Zakayev has signaled a willingness to rein in Chechen extremists in exchange for a peace deal. But by associating even moderates like Zakayev with terrorists, Putin hopes to muzzle talk of any Russian accommodation with the rebels.

Stunned more by the audacity of the terrorists than by the government's bumbling, many Russians found themselves responding last week to Putin's hard-line rhetoric in much the same way that Americans rallied behind Bush's. And yet the terrorists' success in staging their assault in the center of Moscow also showed how ill equipped Putin's government is to deal with the Chechen rebellion.

For now, says Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Strategic Studies Center, based in Moscow, Putin "has acquired the image of a strong and resolute leader — but only for a limited period of time." Russians are still waiting for Putin to prove he can deliver more than tough talk.