 This was followed by the Beslan school hostage crisis in which Chechen separatists took 1,300 hostages.The initially high public support for the war in Chechnya has declined.Putin has confronted several very influential oligarchs (Vladimir Gusinsky, Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in particular) who attained large stakes of state assets, allegedly through illegal schemes, during the privatization process.