While President Vladimir V. Putin prepares an awards ceremony for the F.S.B. agents responsible for killing Presdient Maskhadov, I can't help but think he is merely giving "Hero of Rossiya" medals to a group of toy soldiers. For the Russian federation is a directionless psuedo-democracy. It's (Russia)maligned and sidelined by the American "Neocons" who have designs on a transcaucasian oil pipeline in the context of their "Greater Middle East" initiative.
Putin is a diminutive tyrant with a Napoleon-complex. However, when Napoleon invaded Misr (Egypt), he converted to Islam, though nominally, as a matter of astute strategy. Napoleon, had an idea of how to run an effective campaign of colonisation. In comparison, Putin is replused by Islam, at least in his coarse public discourse. In part, I have to blame the lackluster populace of Russia for allowing a petty former East German KGB agent to scare them into re-electing him on the basis of him being a strong leader. If strength lies somewhere in genocide, then we must deem the masters of war king. That would make the military their genoicidaires, it's conscripts their cannon fodder, and the people the object of a mass extermination.