Putin likens Ukraine's Kursk incursion to school massacre

Russia's President Vladimir Putin lays flowers as he visits the destroyed school, where in 2004 Chechen militants took more than 1,000 people hostage, in Beslan, North Ossetia on August 20, 2024. [AFP]

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday likened Ukraine's incursion into Russia to the 2004 Beslan school massacre, in which some 330 people died in a hostage siege.

Putin visited the school for the first time in almost 20 years, paying tribute to the victims at memorials, including a cemetery and the site of the destroyed school, where Chechen militants took more than 1,000 people hostage.