Truth and Russia

I'm sure most of us were steeled to find out the facts about the violent conclusion to the hostages situation in an Ossetian school. The tragedy seemed inevitable, and although there were pictures of a number of children milling around outside the school compound there were never enough of them to make me really optimistic. One crucial thing that the BBC to their credit reports bluntly- nine of the terrorists (I'll call them that) were reportedly Arabs.

Unfortunately, those Russian dolls that are so available to tourists have a prophetic quality about them. Just when you think you've arrived at the real thing you shake it and realise there's another reality concealed beneath. Russia (and district- a 'difficult' thing to define) may have changed a lot since 1989, but unfortunately the culture where life is clumsily lost runs very deep. That's sad for us all as we have to watch little moppets suffer at the hands of self-proclaimed martyrs.

Update (10pm BST): I thought it would happen that the BBC report would be updated to indicate a growing knowledge of the casualties involved. When I posted it said 'at least 150' killed. Now it says 200- and leads us to expect it will need to be updated again.

The Command Post has some more telling details. Maybe I should forget about any clumsiness on the part of the authorities considering the nature of the injuries.