Putin's United Russia Party won Russian parliamentary elections on Sunday even as the country was reeling from a train blast which claimed the lives of 44 innocent people in southern Russia, reports Shohdy Naguib from Moscow Less than 48 hours before the start of voting in the Russian parliamentary elections, a devastating explosion occurred in a commuter train in the Stavropol region of southern Russia bordering with Chechnya killing 44 people. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. The self- styled ministry of foreign affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was quick to deny its involvement. "The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is fighting against a Russian state-sponsored genocidal terror. We have not, do not and will not employ Russian methods that make no distinction between civilians and combatants, between legitimate and illegitimate means, targets and ends," said a statement on the Chechen Foreign Ministry's website. The very same train was the target of an attack on 3 September that claimed the lives of six people. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack either. Last week's attack, however, was quickly attributed to the "Chechen militants" by Russia's justice minister who went so far as to reconstruct events which occurred before the explosion. According to the minister, there were four suicide bombers, three women and one man. As the train was approaching the station, he explained, they stood up and moved towards the exit. Then the bomb went off. Security sources in Chechnya last week leaked warnings of the possibility of terror attacks in Russia. They warned that Chechen rebels had dispatched a group of "Black Widows" to Russian cities to carry out suicidal attacks on the eve of the 7 December parliamentary elections. The "Black Widows" are widows of Chechnyan fighters and first became known during the October 2002 Moscow theatre hostage crisis that claimed 120 lives. They also struck the Russian capital in July 2003 at the Krylya rock festival, leaving 15 people dead. Although it was one of the bloodiest attacks this year, last week's train blast was muffled by the final preparations for the casting of votes. Despite mounting death tolls and continued terrorist attacks, the "counter-terrorist campaign in Chechnya" was not a prominent issue during the parliamentary election campaign. The protracted war in the southern enclave, and the terror that it breeds, is a reality with which Russians have learned to live. The fact that many of the attacks remain unclaimed raises suspicions that there are other forces at work, besides the Chechen resistance, which profit from the ensuing panic and constant fear of another strike. From the very start of the second Chechen war, the federal government chose to use the term "terrorism" instead of "separatism" to describe the actions of the Chechen extremists. According to Alexandr Cherkasov of the Memorial human rights organisation, "in order to regain control of the enclave the 'counter-terrorist mode' has been chosen only because it did not require parliamentary approval". In his opinion, Putin's government deliberately evaded opportunities to isolate the extremists by engaging in negotiations with moderates. Instead he installed a puppet governor and then promoted him to president. As a result, there is a newly adopted, yet meaningless, constitution and the country is led by Ahmad Kadyrov, a man feared and loathed by his people. And the country is in a state of war. As this year's events clearly show, the security bodies are unable to prevent terrorist attacks in Russia or its capital despite the fact that Moscow is famous for the unconstitutional restrictions on residence in the city. The recurrent vows to "make the ground burn under their feet" no longer have credibility with the dismayed Russian public. At the same time, the increasingly authoritarian methods employed by President Putin, and the tendencies of reviving the imperial strength of a wholesome Russia, presuppose a victorious conclusion to a decade of bloodshed in the breakaway republic. The issue of "restoring order" in Chechnya has evolved into a full-fledged confrontation against the "global threat of terrorism" and President Putin is not alone in this fight. However, an estimated 1500 Chechen fighters that are active in Chechnya are keeping the situation at a permanent standstill and hardly anything can be done about it. The "Black Widows" are plentiful and Russian cities are now becoming a playground for a deadly game of hide-and-seek. In this situation Russians can only hope for yet more security efforts, which can only mean even greater popularity for the president and the United Russia Party (URP). Judging by the overwhelming victory of the URP in the elections, the Chechen separatists most likely will have little chance of negotiating their demands in the coming years.
