Word: chechenization
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Boris Yeltsin clearly isn?t expecting a quick victory in Chechnya. The Russian president plans to take a vacation later this month, his spokesman announced Friday, explaining that Yeltsin needed "a breather." Meanwhile, down in Chechnya his army was beginning to suffer severe casualties at the hands Chechen forces. And the Russian forces appeared to be racking up the collateral damage, too ?- 40 refugees fleeing the fighting were killed Tuesday when a bus was struck by an artillery shell, reportedly fired by a Russian tank. Moscow has dismissed the report as disinformation, but a New York Times reporter interviewed survivors...
...Although the advancing Russians had by Wednesday captured the northern third of the rebel republic, they had done so for the most part without much of a fight. "Chechen forces were biding their time," says TIME Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge. The Chechens, whose president, Aslan Mashkadov, called Wednesday for a "holy war" to repel the Russian invaders, are likely to meet any Russian attempt to cross the Terek River in the mountainous south of Chechnya with fierce resistance. Meanwhile, Moscow rejected European Union offers to mediate in the crisis, insisting that Chechnya is a domestic matter. A domestic...
Wars, of course, carry a political cost, and although Russian generals like to compare their operation to NATO's Kosovo campaign, it's proving a lot more expensive. Moscow has already acknowledged losing four soldiers and two planes in the campaign, while Chechen authorities claim their forces have killed upwards of 100 Russian men. Heavy losses in the Caucasus could prompt a backlash from Russian voters; meanwhile, the campaign has already drawn criticism from the U.S. and the European Union. That's likely to grow amid a burgeoning humanitarian crisis. More than 100,000 refugees have fled Chechnya since Russia...
Nine days of Russian bombing has forced 80,000 refugees to flee Chechnya, and Putin ordered thousands of troops and armored vehicles into a three-pronged invasion of the territory Friday after declaring that Moscow no longer recognizes the legitimacy of President Aslan Mashkadov's Chechen government. Of course, as Moscow has learned at some expense in the past, fighting a war in Chechnya may demand a high cost in men and materiel, as well as in the already depleted confidence of the West?s financial and investor communities (the European Union Thursday warned Russia against restarting the disastrous...
Moscow has managed to whip up Russian public support for war against Chechnya; now it may be trying to delicately climb down from the precipice. Following six days of continuous bombing, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday authorized a meeting between Russian officials in the region and Chechen president Aslan Mashkadov. Russia insists that Mashkadov curb Islamic guerrilla groups operating in his country, although observers point out that the Chechen president himself has limited control over his own territory. And Russian opposition politicians, mindful of Moscow's 1994-96 debacle in Chechnya, are warning against escalating the conflict...