Word: chechenization
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...resolutions are necessary. But Kremlin-watchers have long suggested this was a bargaining strategy, designed to win guarantees on Russian interests in a post-Saddam Iraq, and also to win U.S. consent for Russian military action in Georgia. Moscow says the pro-NATO government in Georgia is sheltering Chechen rebels, but until now Washington has warned Russia against attacking the former Soviet republic...
...Heavy fighting between Russian troops and Chechen fighters on Thursday offers a timely assist for President Vladimir Putin's efforts to convince the UN Security Council that Russia faces a dangerous threat from Georgian territory. What is taking place...
...Several hundred well-armed Chechens - as well-armed if not better than the Russian troops they're facing - are fighting a large Russian unit around the village of Galashki in Ingushetiya. The Chechens have brought down a M-24 Hind helicopter gunship, and inflicted quite a few casualties on the Russians. The numbers are rising, and although Russia early on claimed to have lost 10 men and killed 30 Chechen fighters, our experience in covering this conflict suggests that the claims of each side tend to double enemy casualties and halve their own. So, it's a major battle...
...Russians are certainly correct in claiming that the Chechen fighters infiltrated from Georgia. What they're not discussing, of course, is how - according to Russia's own account - some 200 to 300 heavily armed, uniformed men managed to cross the border in an area where Russia knew they were operating and then, over two weeks, march largely unmolested through some 30 miles of the most heavily militarized and tightly-controlled parts of Russia...
...Still, for Moscow, the Galashki clashes are welcome evidence of Georgian perfidy. The Georgian government traditionally claims that Chechen rebels hide out in the lawless Pankisi Valley where the government has no control, but it's safe to assume the government knew what was happening. There's a lot of sympathy for the Chechen rebels in Georgia, a former Soviet Republic whose leaders have been trying to move out of the Russian orbit and closer to the West. And of course that, and not simply rebel infiltration, is the source of Moscow's hostility to Georgia's government...