In my childhood, Chechnya was the first real war I had heard of. It was happening as I went to school. Mutilated soldiers were coming home, and we had all sorts of myths about the dangerous Chechen separatists floating around. In 1999, four apartment block bombings across Russia led the ex-FSB director and then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to blame the Chechen separatists and start the second Chechen War. A move that eventually earned him his presidency. There is substantial evidence that th...

In my childhood, Chechnya was the first real war I had heard of. It was happening as I went to school. Mutilated soldiers were coming home, and we had all sorts of myths about the dangerous Chechen separatists floating around. In 1999, four apartment block bombings across Russia led the ex-FSB director and then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to blame the Chechen separatists and start the second Chechen War. A move that eventually earned him his presidency. There is substantial evidence that th...