On Monday, hundreds of people said goodbye to the victims of the three-day school siege in the town of Beslan, while in local hospitals many others continued to fight for their lives. Family members of the victims and survivors of the bloodbath in North Ossetia are in despair -- all of Russia finds itself in mourning -- and the world looks on in horror as the full magnitude of the tragedy is slowly revealed. The hostage numbers are continually being revised upwards and the origin of the hostage takers is still uncertain. The versions of the events at the violent end the siege are conflicting.

There were mistakes on the part of the Russian special forces, as President Putin admitted in a speech. Eyewitnesses report serious failures during the storming of the school. Again, Russian journalists are being prevented from providing a comprehensive account of what happened in Beslan to the public. A political debate in the country's media over the background and consequences of the three-day siege is not taking place.

Only later did Vladimir Putin go to the site of these dramatic events, visiting the injured in the hospital and for good reason avoiding any meeting with residents of Beslan. Instead, he turned to the Russian people in a speech. But on doing this, President Putin, who so loves to present himself as the "man of action," appeared to be at a loss and even downright petrified.

He continues to avoid addressing the real causes of this tragedy -- the war in Chechnya that has been raging for years, and which is at least partly to blame for the growth of terror tactics and the deaths of many innocent people. As much as Putin would like Russians to believe, these are not external conflicts that have been imported into the region. It is a very Russian problem -- the independence fight for a small republic in the Caucasus -- that has fuelled this conflict.

The radicals, and especially the determined terrorists in Beslan, have only been able to gain ground after the long years of war and bloody conflict in the region have created an army of desperate people. These are people who have lost everything, whose family members have been tortured and murdered and whose young people know nothing but violence. These are people who have had to experience unbelievable barbarity from both Russians and Chechens and now want only one thing: revenge. At the same time, there is no greater desire among the civilian population than to simply live in peace.

Beslan is a horrible symbol for a conflict that has long since expanded beyond the borders of Chechnya and now threatens to set the entire Caucasus region ablaze. Putin must now try to break this vicious circle, with international assistance if necessary. And the west should be ready to provide it because in the war against terror, Russian needs solidarity.