Putin and the Kremlin will get away with lying about what happened in Beslan because that is the way it is in Russia, reports Daniel McLaughlin.
He has been called Russia's teflon president, and critics are again accusing Mr Vladimir Putin of shirking responsibility for a bloody and humiliating crisis.
But in a country where political opposition is in disarray, parliament is packed with the president's men and the most influential media is under state control, it is unlikely that the former KGB spy will become another victim of the siege in Beslan.
While liberal commentators lambast Mr Putin for pursuing a failed policy of force in Chechnya, and leading newspapers ask why the security forces keep failing Russia so badly, no one can imagine him being ousted from the Kremlin.
Six months into a second term as president, Mr Putin faces his most severe test after hundreds of Russians died in twin airliner attacks, a suicide bombing in Moscow and then the country's worst hostage crisis.
But after destroying shambolic opponents in a March election, and seeing his supporters rout the communist and liberals in a parliamentary vote last December, there is no one in Russia now capable of exploiting the growing chinks in Mr Putin's armour.
In a rare address to the nation on Saturday, Mr Putin said the attacks on Beslan and elsewhere were the result of weakness caused by economic problems, ethnic strife and even the porous borders left by the collapse of the Soviet Union 13 years ago.
He also blamed corruption in the security services, and accused unnamed foreign foes of trying to tear Russia apart.
Above all, he blamed "international terrorism", and suggested that armed separatism in the North Caucasus was funded by Islamic extremists.
He did not mention the word "Chechnya".
"The official claim that international terrorism is behind the Beslan tragedy is a trick designed to divert responsibility away from the Kremlin," said former liberal party leader Mr Boris Nemtsov.
Mr Vladimir Ryzhkov, writing in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, said Russians could now see through Mr Putin's carefully nurtured image as a steely leader capable of stabilising the country.
"We are absolutely defenceless in the air, in the metro, in our own capital and outside it," Mr Ryzhkov wrote.
"He won the contract (as president) to restore order in the country, to ensure security for people. We see today that the contract has been violated."
Mr Ryzhkov is one of a handful of parliamentary deputies who do not belong to pro-Kremlin parties, which under Mr Putin have hammered the likes of Mr Nemtsov and other liberals nurtured by his predecessor, Mr Boris Yeltsin.
The liberals' talent for infighting hastened their demise, but the final nails were driven into their coffin by a state-dominated media apparatus that international observers denounced during parliamentary and presidential elections for their pro-Putin bias.
Since taking power in 2000, Mr Putin has overseen the destruction of two independent national television channels, and the state's takeover of a third.
As the Beslan siege ended in mayhem, Russian television immediately blamed "international terrorists", and lauded the bravery of the country's special forces.
This less than a fortnight after Russian newscasters were allegedly ordered not to mention the phrase "terrorist attack" for many hours after two airliners crashed almost simultaneously; the incident conveyed entirely the wrong message just days before a presidential election in Chechnya, which Mr Putin calls a region on the road to peace.
Critics accuse Mr Putin and other senior officials of passing the buck over security, or simply lying low to avoid being associated with the grim news.
And in a still-fledgling democracy where poverty is pervasive, independent information is hard to find and political opposition is emasculated, analysts see no possibility of a reckoning to match that in Spain in March, when the ruling party blamed Basque separatists for train bombings later claimed by an Islamic group.
"But in Russia, unfortunately, there is no tradition of answering for lies or failures."