MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. The Beslan school siege and the Moscow theater siege were the toughest tests that Vladimir Putin went through during his 20 years in power, as the Russian president himself said at his annual news conference.
"Major terrorist attacks were the toughest to deal with. The Beslan school siege was one of them. I will never forget it. Another one was the Moscow theater siege," Putin noted.
When speaking about security issues, the Russian president pointed out that "military activities continued in the [North] Caucasus until 2006." "They involved tanks, aircraft and other heavy equipment," he said, adding that it was why he had a strong reaction to a question about the war in Chechnya at a meeting with rights activists.
"When a film director [Alexander Sokurov], whom I love and respect, suggested that ‘we should probably rewrite everything,’ do you remember what I said in response? We did rewrite everything in 1917," Putin said. "And now we are trying to identify those who had believed it all at the Butovo Firing Range and other places where mass executions took place. It is a very dangerous path," Putin emphasized.