Russia's media have responded to the Moscow hostage crisis by launching a blistering attack on President Putin for failing, despite his much-vaunted strong leadership, to prevent the terrorist attack.
"The illusions are over," the opposition daily newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote of Mr Putin's authority. "Is this not a humiliating demonstration of the authorities' helplessness?" The paper said it was "unlikely anybody still felt they were living under a strong state".
The Vremya Novostei pro-reform daily paper concurred, saying the Chechen rebels had "dealt a devastating blow to the Russian authorities". They had done so "with a disconcerting ease", it noted. Russian authorities were "in a deep crisis", the opposition Novye Izvestya wrote.
Mr Putin bore full responsibility for the fate of the hostages, a political analyst, Lilya Shevtsova, said in Gazeta. The Russian President must "assume full responsibility for the hostages' release. Until he does so, his popularity will drop and he could share the fate of Jimmy Carter [the US president who lost the 1980 election after he failed to secure the release of US hostages held in Iran]," she said.
Several papers said the crisis would have serious implications for Russia's policy in Chechnya. Mr Putin would have to "reorient his whole strategy" in the Caucasus, Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote, adding: "The calendar of military operations in Chechnya has matched that of Russian elections in a striking manner."