Religion and Politics Under the Putin Administration: Accommodation and Confrontation within “Managed Pluralism”

The last question had become increasingly important during Putin's second term of office, with the Kremlin's official view that much of the political resistance and militarized separatist activity in the Caucasus region is very much connected to international Islamist terrorist groups, particularly Al-Qaeda.5 Although the Russian Orthodox Church has understandably and predictably condemned violence and terrorism, it has demonstrated little ifany public inclination to pose difficult questions about the Putin administration's policies that may be contributing to the deepening knot of violence. On 16 February 2004, President Putin issued a decree establishing the National Counterterrorism Committee (NAK), after which the Duma passed a bill expanding the powers of the Russian state to counter terrorism; both of these had followed a call by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov for an international front to combat terrorism.8 Further, during 2005, and evidently in response to the perception that foreign NGOs played a substantial and significant role in the "color revolutions" of Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004-05), and Krygystan (2005), the Duma passed legislation designed to control more closely foreign organizations working in Russia.