ABSTRACT
Two years before the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC and two months after launching a full-scale invasion of the Russian Federal Republic of Chechnya, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin published an op-ed article in the New York Times (Putin 1999) justifying Russia’s actions in Chechnya and offering a remarkably prescient warning to Americans:
Because we value our relations with the United States and care about Americans’ perception of us, I want to explain our actions in clear terms.
