War may take me but I will never give myself to it. 27 of the dead are newborns and new mothers. These shocking events were reported to people around the world - with the exception of those in Russia. All Russian television stations receive those news agencies - yet none of them reported anything. Times Ground troops move through the northern part of the Chechnya, although the Russian government originally said there would be no ground troops and a Russian General is already talking about the capture of Grozny, which the Russians said they would avoid.
Truth is certainly the first victim of war.
The overwhelming notion that this Chechen invasion is a bloody act of political face saving becomes reinforced daily as the body count among civilians rises and young Russian soldiers suffer in the field for national pride. Even if the Russians manage to secure their northern objectives, the mountainous south will claim too many lives to maintain the tenuous rationale of surgical strikes at strategic targets. There are too many grieving mothers and widows who live every with the loss of their sons and husbands from the first Chechen war. Putin would make more in his own country and in Chechnya. If this invasion is a reaction to the recent bombings in Russian, then it is a shotgun solution of the worst kind.