Terror on the Subway

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When Ilya Blokhin, a surgeon heading downtown to his job in a private Moscow clinic, heard what sounded like a firecracker go off on his metro train last Friday, a commuter near him muttered, "I'll be late for work." It turned out to be far worse than that. A blast ripped through the second car of a packed train at the height of the morning rush hour. Within minutes, at least 39 people were dead and 134 were injured. Wreckage and human remains were spread along 164 ft. of the tunnel. "We're taking out the dead, or what's left of them," said a rescue worker. "You don't want to know what happened to them."

For ordinary Russians, the scenes of carnage were numbingly familiar, yet another reminder of how dangerous the country has become since President Vladimir Putin came to power. While Putin has imposed draconian curbs on the media and created a tame Parliament, he has not been able to pacify Chechnya, the breakaway republic whose separatists were swiftly blamed for the subway bombing. In 1999 Putin, then a new and little-known Prime Minister, made his name by ordering the reinvasion of Chechnya. Military commanders promised a speedy victory; instead, a radical, fundamentalist wing of the guerrilla movement has brought the war to the heart of Russia. In the past nine months, more than 200 people have died in terrorist attacks, including the bombing of commuter trains in southern Russia and blasts at a rock concert and outside a luxury hotel opposite the Kremlin. Many of the attacks are the work of suicide bombers, often women.

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The death toll from last Friday's subway bombing could have been much higher but for the heroics of the train's driver, Vladimir Gorelov, who slammed on the brakes and contacted engineers to shut the power off so that people could get out of the train without risking electrocution. Some 500 people escaped. Despite the darkness, fire and the acrid smoke, witnesses said passengers were remarkably calm.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the latest atrocity, but Putin and his allies had no doubt as to who was to blame. Appearing on TV with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, a rattled Putin accused Chechnya's deposed President and secessionist leader, Aslan Maskhadov, of being behind the bombing. Putin also denounced European politicians who had earlier called for negotiations with Maskhadov. "Russia does not negotiate with terrorists," he said. "It annihilates them."

Maskhadov's main overseas representative, Akhmed Zakayev, denied responsibility for the bombing and claimed instead that Russian security had been "directly or indirectly" involved. "We condemn all forms of terrorism," Zakayev had told TIME in an interview from London shortly before the bombing. "It's a death sentence for our cause if we are associated with terrorism." The one Chechen commander who in the past has admitted ordering similar attacks, Shamil Basayev, has so far been silent. (Maskhadov claims to have broken all links with Basayev and has denounced his tactics.) This did not stop loud calls by nationalist politicians for tough new antiterrorist measures, including the expulsion of Chechens from Moscow, declaration of a state of emergency and the lifting of a moratorium on the death penalty. Dmitry Rogozin, a deputy speaker of the Duma, called for the postponement of next month's presidential elections. And yet the audaciousness of the subway attack has exposed Russia's vulnerability to terrorism. While Russian regulations require nonresidents of Moscow to report to police on arrival and state their business, outsiders, terrorists included, can easily stay as long as they want merely by paying a $3 to $6 bribe.

Last week's bombing, says Lilia Shevtsova, a top analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, "ruins the Putin image of the President in control and on top of things." While Putin is still poised to win a landslide re-election next month — his approval ratings are around 80%--the mood of those who turn out to vote for him may prove to be more fatalistic than triumphant. Just after last Friday's blast, Oksana Petrova, 32, shrugged when a reporter asked her if she was now afraid of taking the metro. "Of course, I'm scared," she said. "But what we can do? We're ordinary people. We don't control our lives. It's up to them at the top."