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Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Beslan, North Ossetia on August 20. There, he first visited the “City of Angels” monument-cemetery where the graves of 266 of the 334 victims of the Beslan terrorist attack are located.
During his visit to the “City of Angels” monument, Putin knelt down to commemorate the victims, which the journalist of the state-owned “Russia” TV station described on his Telegram channel as “shocking footage.”
After visiting school No. 1 in Beslan, Putin met with only 3 representatives of “Mothers of Beslan” NGO. Emma Tagayeva, a representative of the “Voice of Beslan” organization, told the “Dozhd” news agency that many people wanted to meet Putin, but “unfortunately, it was not allowed, one could not even approach the President.”
The visit took place 12 days before the 20th anniversary of the Beslan terrorist attack.
The official website of the Russian President published a statement about the visit. A 5-minute video of the meeting was also published in which only the President of the Russian Federation speaks.
At this meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin incorrectly stated the number of children killed during the Beslan terrorist attack which didn’t go unnoticed by a number of leading media outlets (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
The President of the Russian Federation stated: “We are meeting each other on the eve of the anniversary of the terrorist operation in Beslan, a great tragedy for our country, for the families of the victims, which took the lives of 334 people, 136 of whom were children.”
According to official data, the number of people who fell victim to the terrorist attack in Beslan reached 334, of which 186 were children under the age of 17.
In the published video, however, the Russian president talks more about the war against Ukraine, saying:
“Our adversaries, our enemies continue their action, they try to weaken our country, that’s obvious. We fought against terrorists, and today we have to fight against those who commit crimes in Kursk region and Donbass. But just as we have acheved our goal in the fight against terrorism, so did we achieve our goals in the fight against neo-Nazism. And we will definitely defeat the adversary, that is beyond any doubt.”
“Dozhd” commentator Mikhail Fishman noted in his Telegram channel that Putin’s visit to Beslan was not to remember the children, but to emphasize the connection between the Beslan terrorism and the war against Ukraine.
“Putin’s aim was not to commemorate the children of Beslan at all. And it is not by chance that he does not know the exact number of children killed. During his visit, he emphasized the connection between Beslan and his war against Ukraine: “enemies continue to weaken our country.” In his speech on September 4, 2004, in connection with the events in Beslan, Putin said, “some want to tear a fatty piece from us, while others are helping them.” It was from this statement that his open fight against the West began,” Fishman expressed his opinion.
20 years after the Beslan terrorist attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beslan school for the first time, and Beslan city for the second time. The previous visit was in 2008. He met with the representatives of “Mothers of Beslan” NGO for the second time 20 years later. The first meeting took place in 2005, a year after the terrorist attack, not in Beslan, but in Moscow. Mothers who lost their children to terrorism were invited to Moscow to meet with Putin.
4 years after the tragedy, in 2008, the activists of the “Voice of Beslan” organization appealed to the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to open a case against Vladimir Putin for omission. Vladimir Putin was then the Prime Minister of Russia. Those affected by the Beslan tragedy and relatives of the affected claim that Vladimir Putin is responsible for refusing to negotiate with terrorists for 2.5 days, as well as for using indiscriminate weapons during the anti-terror operation to free the hostages.
Vladimir Putin was not held accountable. In order to investigate terrorism, the criminal case initiated on September 1, 2004 has not yet ended. The official reasoning is that the identities of some of the terrorists have not yet been confirmed.
In Beslan, on September 1, 2004, terrorists took 1180 hostages. As a result of terrorism, the number of injured exceeded 800, of which 72 children and 69 adults received various degrees of disability, 62 employees of the law enforcement agencies were also injured.
On August 20, Vladimir Putin was also in Chechnya and met with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Alyona Hayrapetyan
