That's Mother Russia, not some tidy-widy western community.
I understand Chechenians, trust me. It's Russia, not US. In Russia, armed soldiers can massacre a civilian town in Chechenia and nobody cares about this. Government does everything to cripple power of Chechenians.
Army had right to make violent action, too. Sure, many died, but it's not like in US, where when someone is taken hostage Bush makes speeches about how they are not going to bow down before terrorist and in short don't give a (Editor: Censored) whenever the hostage will die or not.
And, that's Russia. That's the heritage of soviet methods of acting.