“Unlike the West, we keep out of other countries’ backyards.” Ten major fakes from Vladimir Putin's Valdai speech

“I will always remember what I faced in 2000, after I was elected president. I will always remember the price we paid to destroy the terrorist nest in the North Caucasus, which the West almost openly supported at the time. All of you here are adults, most of you in this room understand what I am talking about. We know that this is exactly what happened in practice: financial, political and information support. We all lived through it. Moreover, [the West] not only actively supported terrorists on the Russian territory, but in many ways nurtured this threat. We know this.”

In 22 years, Putin has never offered any proof that the Chechen wars were the result of Western intrigue. The establishment of the All-National Congress of the Chechen People (OKChN) in 1990, under the leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev, was the prelude for the first Chechen war. The Congress's aim was to secede from the Soviet Union and establish an independent Chechen state. A year later Dudayev proclaimed the Chechen Republic. This was followed by the storming of the building of the Supreme Soviet of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, the television center and the radio house, and the assassination of the chairman of Grozny City Council Vitaly Kutsenko. It remains a mystery where Putin found “the West’s hand” in these events.

Public opinion in Western countries was indeed not on the side of the Russian leadership. However, rather than political issues it had to do with human rights violations by Russian forces: murders, kidnappings, and torture, particularly of civilians. In October 2000, Human Rights Watch published its 99-page report “Welcome to Hell,” which describes how thousands of Chechens were detained by Russian troops, many without any evidence of wrongdoing. The guards systematically beat the Chechen prisoners, and some of them were also raped or subjected to other forms of torture. Most were released only after their families paid large bribes to Russian officials. The UN Commission on Human Rights adopted two resolutions in 2000 and 2001 condemning human rights violations in Chechnya and demanding that Russia set up an independent national commission of inquiry. The Council of Europe, in numerous resolutions between 2003 and 2007, called on Russia to stop human rights violations. Between 2005 and 2007, the European Court of Human Rights heard cases brought by Chechens against the Russian government, and in many of those cases Russia was found guilty. Perhaps the monetary compensations, which the ECHR awarded to the victims, are, in Putin's understanding, “financial support of terrorists.”