What kind of people can harm children like that? The kind of people that have seen the brutality with which the Russian army literally destroyed their country, obviously. How you can completely flatten a city of one million and expect to get away with it is beyond me.
I'm refraining from giving a more thourough view of the Chechens position becasue I dont want to people to think I am not unhappy about all the dead children, because I am. It was a disgusting act, and I shouldn't even have to say so.
Putin doesn't just sit on his scrawny arse all day, he has worked very hard to get Chechnya and Russia in the position that they are in now. Putin's hardline politics cost innocent Russian and Chechen lives, and it takes determination and strength to do that.
The prerequisite for any democracy is national self-determination. Constant state of war is the only way Russian Federation is able to keep the nations of the ex-SSRs together. Russia has to leave Chechnya.
Unlike Al-Qaeda, these were terrorists with demands, needs, and a motivation that can be reasoned with. There is no reason to believe this is one of those 'slippery slope' cases where once you have given Chechnya independence again, they will try to annex more Russian land using terrorist means. So nobody even mention 'apeasment'.
It might be best even from the narrow chauvinist point of view of 'Russian interests'. Chechnya is a small nation. Giving it formal independence would probably not result in an independent country, but to a dependent country of Chechnya. This is due to economic, material factors. That way Russia might have even more control over its oil production than it has now.
Yes, other Chechen groups have condemed the dudes who did this school hostage thing, but a few years ago nobody would have done such a thing. The situation is turning the Chechens more bloodthirsty.