President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday likened Ukraine’s incursion into Russia to the 2004 Beslan school massacre, in which some 330 people died in a hostage siege.
Putin visited the school for the first time in almost 20 years, paying tribute to the victims at memorials, including a cemetery and the site of the destroyed school, where Chechen militants took more than 1,000 people hostage.
Meeting mothers who lost children in the siege, Putin said that Russia’s enemies are again trying to destabilise the country, referring to Ukraine.
“Just as we fought the terrorists, today we have to fight those who are carrying out crimes in the Kursk region,” Putin said, referring to Ukraine’s cross-border offensive that began two weeks ago.
“But just as we achieved our goals in the fight with terrorism, we will achieve these goals also in this direction in the fight with neo-Nazis,” Putin added, sitting opposite three women from the Mothers of Beslan group.
“And we will undoubtedly punish the criminals, there can be no doubt of that,” Putin added.
The Mothers of Beslan group has long called for an objective probe into the attack and the Russian authorities’ response.
The September 2004 siege lasted some 50 hours, ending in a gunfight when Russian special forces stormed the building following explosions in the school gym, where the hostages were being held.
The siege in the Caucasus region of North Ossetia came amid a guerilla insurgency by Chechen separatists, branded “terrorists” by Putin.
Putin launched a major Russian offensive to quash Chechnya’s armed bid for independence in late 1999, weeks before becoming president.
The war against the Chechen insurgency helped fuel Putin’s initial popularity, but at the end of 2019 he described the Beslan siege as a “personal pain” that would remain with him for life.
Putin and the Kremlin were criticised for their handling of the attack at the time.