By empty (9/7/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Raf Shakirov, the editor in chief of \"Izvestiya,\" announced on 6 September that he has submitted his resignation because of differences with the newspaper\'s owners over coverage of the events in Beslan, RIA-Novosti reported. Shakirov told RFE/RL\'s Russian Service that the management of ProfMedia, the media-holding company controlled by oligarch Vladimir Potanin\'s financial-industrial group Interros, reprimanded him for the 4 September issue of the newspaper devoted to the hostage drama in Beslan \"The management at ProfMedia and I disagreed about the format of presenting this material. It was considered too emotional and too poster-like, and [the publishers said] newspapers don\'t do that.

By empty (9/7/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 4 September described a 3 September comment about the Beslan hostage drama by Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot as \"insolent,\" RFE/RL reported on 6 September. Bot told an EU meeting that the union sympathizes with Russia\'s loss but \"would also like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened.\" Deputy Foreign Minister Valerii Loshchin said on 4 September that Bot\'s remark \"is offensive and borders on the sacrilegious.

By empty (9/7/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In the 6 September interview with RTR, presidential adviser Aslakhanov said that the Federal Security Service\'s (FSB) elite Vympel and Alfa antiterrorism units suffered their worst losses in a single operation in their 30 years of existence. Twenty officers of the units were killed and more than 20 others were wounded. Aslakhanov, who was a member of the operation staff in Beslan, added that the reason for the high losses was the fact that the storming of the building was not planned and there was no order to storm it.