Separatism in Tatarstan?

NY Times
International / Europe
Russia’s Recognition of Georgian Areas Raises Hopes of Its Own Separatists
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: September 10, 2008

Russia has opened a Pandora's box by recognizing South Ossetia. It's only going to encourage its internal separatist movements. Someday, Russian leaders will not be in such a strong position and will not be able to repress their civilians as they did/do in Chechnya.

Take note of what the Russians say in regards to Georgia's attack on one of its separatist provinces:

Moscow’s position is that South Ossetia and Abkhazia were extreme situations, in which decisions were driven by the threat to the lives of its citizens. Russian troops poured across the border early in August, after Georgian forces attacked civilian areas in the city of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, with rocket and artillery fire.

The attack made it “completely impossible” to conceive of South Ossetia returning to Georgian control, said Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for Mr. Putin, now Russia’s prime minister.

Pay attention to the facts given above. You have a state using military force against a constituent geographic unit. Russia's conclusion is that given the attack it is "completely impossible" to see South Ossetia returning to Georgian control. Now compare the facts from Chechnya:

...In the 1990s, President Boris N. Yeltsin urged regional leaders to “take as much sovereignty as you can swallow.” Movements toward self-rule were taking hold in some of Russia’s most valuable territory...

All this came to a halt in Chechnya, an oil-rich patch of land in the north Caucasus. Chechnya was the only region to declare independence outright. In 1994, Russia sent troops into Chechnya, and two years of fighting left tens of thousands dead. In 1999, amid a crescendo of violence throughout the north Caucasus, Mr. Putin, then the prime minister, oversaw a second war that obliterated the Chechen rebel movement.

The message from Moscow — empowered and newly rich with petrodollars — was clear. “Russia has shown the inhuman price it will pay to preserve its territorial integrity,” said Sergei A. Karaganov, a political scientist who leads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy.

I do not countenance what Georgian leaders did in South Ossetia. As bad as it was, it pales in comparison to what Yeltsin and Putin did in Chechnya.

This level of hypocrisy would be unbelievable from almost any nation. Distressingly, Russia is making a habit of it.