Word: chechen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...boasted that his forces would subdue Chechnya's rebellion in a matter of hours, the Russian tricolor finally fluttered last week atop the ruins of the presidential palace in Grozny. As resistance fighters melted into the suburbs and took to the hills, the bloody battle for control of the Chechen capital shifted sufficiently in Moscow's favor to allow Boris Yeltsin to claim victory. This he speedily did. ``The military stage of restoring the constitution in Chechnya is effectively over,'' he declared in Moscow, adding that the time had come for the ``restoration of Chechnya's life-support system...
...wake of a war that has devastated the breakaway region, killed hundreds of civilians and fighters, and created more than 300,000 refugees, Yeltsin's declaration seemed more vacuous than victorious. General Jokhar Dudayev, the Chechen separatist leader, remained at large, and his fighters have vowed to continue their struggle in a mountainous country tailor-made for guerrilla warfare...
...soldier see no change in our position and our duty,'' declared the Chechen commander in chief, Colonel Aslan Maskhadov, speaking in Nazran, capital of the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. ``Our high command continues to exist. Our volunteers are at their places and are ready to fight on harder than ever. If they think they can insult and enslave the Chechen people, this fighting will go on for years...
...Yeltsin contemplated that possibility, he was also scrambling to deal with the political and economic fallout from his unpopular and ill-advised campaign. Despite official denials, three Deputy Defense Ministers who had been openly critical of the Chechen war were reported to have been ousted by Yeltsin, including General Boris Gromov, the popular Afghan war veteran widely viewed as a strong contender for the post of Defense Minister. Yeltsin also sought to project the image that he was in command. ``I am in strict control of the Russian security structures, and I learn about the situation in Chechnya every...
Even as Yeltsin spoke, serious things were happening in Moscow that he was powerless to stop. Financial markets, al- ready spooked by the Chechen conflict and further unnerved by the atmosphere of political uncertainty, drove the ruble toward an all-time low against the dollar, even as a delegation from the International Monetary Fund was in Moscow to review the govern- ment's commitment to economic reform. At stake is a $12 billion loan package to back an economic-stabilization program. Parliament jeopardized that program last week by deciding to delay a critical vote on the 1995 budget that...