Adjunct professor Jill Dougherty. Putin from the beginning....

[Mark Kohut]

A few months after he had been anointed as next Russian leader, 2000.
"He confidently took questions for three hours; I was impressed. He was
cool and in control -- that is, until he was challenged with a question
about the war in Chechnya. Suddenly, his entire body stiffened, he leaned
in toward us, his gestures became jerky and angry as he justified his
scorched-earth tactics against the breakaway republic.
I knew how brutal the war was but, nine months before, on a chill September
night, I had stood on a Moscow street, gaping in horror at the front of an
apartment building sheared off by a massive explosion
<http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/02/06/russia.timeline/> that the
Kremlin blamed on Chechen terrorists. More than 100 people died. A few days
later another apartment building was bombed, followed by bombings in two
other Russian cities.
So, I gave Putin a break. Yes, there were rumors that the Russian
government itself, with Putin as Yeltsin's newly-chosen prime minister, was
behind the attacks, creating a pretext to propel the former KGB officer to
the presidency. But to blow up your own citizens seemed too outlandish, too
impossible, too horrible to even contemplate."