Transcript of Putin's televised remarks at the Kremlin on Sept. 4th:
It is a difficult and bitter task for me to speak. A horrible tragedy happened in our land. During these last few days, each one of us suffered immensely, having all that happened in the Russian city of Beslan run through our hearts. We were confronted not just by murderers, but those who used their weapons against defenseless children.
In the first place, I am addressing today those who lost the dearest in their life, their children, their kin, their closest. I want you to remember all those who died at the hands of terrorists in the last few days.
There have been many tragic pages and difficult trials in the history of Russia. Today we are living in conditions formed after the disintegration of a huge, great country, the country which unfortunately turned out to be nonviable in the conditions of rapidly changing world.
Today, however, despite all difficulties, we managed to preserve the nucleus of that giant, the Soviet Union. We called the new country the Russian Federation.
We all expected changes, changes for the better, but found ourselves absolutely unprepared for much that changed in our lives. The question is why. We live in conditions of a transitional economy and a political system that do not correspond to the development of society. We live in conditions of aggravated internal conflicts and ethnic conflicts that before were harshly suppressed by the governing ideology.
We stopped paying due attention to issues of defense and security. We allowed corruption to affect the judiciary and law enforcement systems. In addition to that, our country, which once had one of the mightiest systems of protecting its borders, suddenly found itself unprotected either from West or East.
It would take many years and billions of rubles to create new, modern and truly protected borders. But even so, we could have been more effective if we had acted in timely and professional fashion. We have to admit that we failed to recognize the complexity and danger of the processes going on in our own country and the world as a whole. At any rate, we failed to react to them adequately. We demonstrated weakness, and the weak are beaten.
Some want to tear off a big chunk of our country. Others help them to do it. They help because they think that Russia, as one of the greatest nuclear powers of the world, is still a threat, and this threat has to be eliminated. And terrorism is only an instrument to achieve these goals.
As I have said on many occasions, we have faced crises, rebellions and terrorist acts many times. But what has happened now - the unprecedented crime committed by terrorists, inhuman in its cruelty - is not a challenge to the president, the Parliament or the government. This is a challenge to all of Russia, to all our people. This is an attack against all of us.
Terrorists think that they are stronger, that they will be able to intimidate us, to paralyze our will, to erode our society. It seems that we have a choice: to resist or to cave in and agree with their claims; to give up and allow them to destroy and to take Russia apart, in hope that eventually they would leave us alone.
As president, as the head of the Russian state, as a man who gave an oath to protect the country and its integrity, as a citizen of Russia, I am convinced that in fact we do not have any choice, because as soon as we allow ourselves to be blackmailed and to panic, we shall immerse millions of people in a series of bloody conflicts, similar to Karabakh, Trans-Dnestria and other well known tragedies.
We cannot but see the evident: we are dealing not with separate acts of intimidation, not with individual forays of terrorists. We are dealing with the direct intervention of international terror against Russia, with total and full-scale war, which again and again is taking away the lives of our compatriots.
All the world's experience shows that such wars do not end quickly. In these conditions, we simply cannot, we should not, live as carelessly as before.
We must create a more effective security system, and demand from our law enforcement agencies actions adequate in level and scale to the new threats.
But what is more important is a mobilization of the nation before the general threat. Events in other countries prove that terrorists meet the most effective rebuff where they confront not only the power of the state but also an organized and united civil society.
Dear fellow citizens, those who sent terrorists to commit this horrible crime had the goal of setting our peoples against one another, to intimidate citizens of Russia, to unleash a bloody feud in the North Caucasus. In this connection, I would like to say the following:
First, in the near future, a complex of measures aimed at strengthening the unity of our country will be prepared.
Second, I consider it necessary to create a new system of forces and means for exercising control over the situation in the North Caucasus.
Third, it is necessary to create an affective crisis management system, including entirely new approaches to the work of law enforcement agencies.
I would like to stress that all these measures will be implemented in full accordance with the Constitution.
Dear friends: Together we live through very hard, mournful hours. I would like to thank all those who demonstrated patience and civic responsibility. We shall always be stronger than they, by our morale, courage and our humane solidarity.
One could see it today and the night before. In Beslan, soaked with pain and grief, people expressed even more care and support to each other and were not afraid of jeopardizing their lives for the sake of the lives and safety of others. Even in the most inhuman conditions, they remained human. It is impossible to reconcile the pain of the losses. The trial has brought us even closer together, made us re-evaluate many things. Today, we have to be together. Only thus we shall defeat the enemy.
