In July last year, Colonel Budanov was sentenced to ten years and stripped of all of his officer's decorations. The military tribunal of the North Caucasian Military District ruled that the former commander of a tank regiment was guilty of the murder of Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva. The trial, which lasted two years, split the army fighting in Chechnya and Russian society. Many officers denounced the trial as a political attempt to shift the blame for kangaroo trials of the local population onto the army. Elza Kungayeva was a victim of such trial: Budanov brought her to his place and strangled her to death. His claims that Kungayeva was a sharpshooter were presented later, while initially he had been charged with raping her. This outraged Anatoly Kvashnin, then chief of the General Staff, and President Vladimir Putin demanded a thorough investigation.
It was believed that the trial of Yuri Budanov would be quick, but the process soon acquired a political tint. The servicemen said openly that it is impossible to wage the war against terrorists in the North Caucasus without persecuting those who support them. Budanov resorted to extreme measures, but he is a fighting officer decorated with the Order of Courage, argued his lawyers.
Patriotic organisations in defence of Yuri Budanov mushroomed around the country. It became clear that if Budanov were sentenced as a military criminal, this would encourage the radical sections of the public to seriously criticise the authorities. The phraseabout "a knife in the back" of a fighting army sounded very loudly.
In the past, the defeat in the Caucasian war was blamed on General Lebed (he died in a helicopter crash) who signed the Khasavyurt peace agreements shortly before presidential elections (1996). Now it is Putin's name that is at stake. It was the current president who announced an uncompromising war on terrorism in the North Caucasus and never tired of reiterating this thesis. The high rating of Putin and his election to the top post is linked, with good reason, with his harsh policy of preserving the integrity of the state in a situation of the separatist threat in the Caucasus.
Russian law faced an extremely difficult task. Though there was solid proof of Budanov's guilt, the court was aware of the political lining of his trial. And yet the military judge passed the verdict of guilty, which was a severe sentence not because it was passed on an officer but also because it proved the superiority of law over political considerations and corporate morals.
The Kremlin reacted immediately. Presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said: "It was a correct decision. The court showed courage and strong will." And here is what he told the army: "This is not a blow at the Russian army; it is an honour for the army..., which is being cleansed of the people who soiled the reputation of the army."
It no longer looks like a coincidence that the former colonel is serving his term in the Ulyanovsk Region. General Shamanov energetically defended his former tank commander during the trial and did his best to ensure that he was sent to Dimitrovgrad. And now Shamanov is using the Beslan tragedy to do what the opponents of the verdict expected him to do - he signed the appeal to Putin.
The president has been put in a difficult situation. To grant the governor's appeal would mean that the Kremlin has yielded to the pressure of a certain part of the army who demand complete freedom of operationin the Caucasus. They ask not only for pardoning Budanov but also for reinstating him in his military rank and returning his decorations to him.
On the other hand, Putin must take into account the possible reaction to his decision of those Chechens who see him as the guarantor of justice and law. Knowing that Putin seldom grants such appeals, one can assume that Shamanov's demarche (his gubernatorial powers are expiring) will be seen as nothing other than a demarche.
