COMMENT President Vladimir Putin yesterday took a chainsaw to the fragile roots of Russian democracy. In announcing plans to reduce the independence of regional governors and the national parliament (Duma) he claimed to be trying to strengthen Russia's defences against terrorism. In truth, he was doing nothing of the kind. He was simply exploiting the Beslan massacre to seize new powers for the Kremlin.
Russia's security forces certainly need a drastic overhaul. The school siege revealed failures at almost every level of command. Angry Russian voters are rightly demanding change.
