Word: chechenization
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MOSCOW: As the Russian presidential campaign enters the home stretch, President Boris Yeltsin is stepping up his reelection effort. Wednesday brought a plan to end the 17-month conflict in Chechnya along with praise and promises of more financial backing for the Russian army. Yeltsin proposes a Chechen republic still under Russian dominion, but with control over its own natural resources and finances. "The Chechens probably won't like this first proposal," reports TIME Moscow correspondent Sally Donnelly, "since they have been fighting all this time to establish an independent republic. But at least the Russians are starting to talk...
MOSCOW: As the Russian presidential campaign enters the home stretch, President Boris Yeltsin is stepping up his reelection effort. Wednesday brought a plan to end the 17-month conflict in Chechnya along with praise and promises of more financial backing for the Russian army. Yeltsin proposes a Chechen republic still under Russian dominion, but with control over its own natural resources and finances. "The Chechens probably won't like this first proposal," reports TIME Moscow correspondent Sally Donnelly, "since they have been fighting all this time to establish an independent republic. But at least the Russians are starting to talk...
However it happened, though, Dudayev is gone. Yeltsin has said publicly that his re-election could depend on the outcome of the Chechen war; and in the short term, the elimination of the charismatic rebel, who had turned himself into a personal nemesis for Yeltsin, may look like a success and give the President a boost. In the longer run, the abrupt end of Dudayev's one-man leadership could result in splits and instability among the Chechen rebel commanders and make a settlement even harder to reach. Still, Yeltsin will no doubt be glad Dudayev is finished. The dapper...
...From his own perspective, it's a matter of what comprises a military operation. The way he sees it, the Russians aren't planning any big operations; the troops are just defending themselves." However Yeltsin views the conflict, it still looks very much like a war. Two weeks ago, Chechen rebels ambushed a Russian convoy and killed more than 70 soldiers. Last week they attacked Russian positions with rifles and grenades dozens of times each day, and the Russians responded with artillery and air strikes...
Yeltsin had called for contacts, through middlemen, with Dudayev. Even though the Chechen chief is dead and the fighting continues, such feelers with rebel leaders are still possible. But for the moment the outlook is not good. Dudayev's successor seems to be his vice president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who has a reputation as an ideologue and a believer in war to the end. Russian human-rights advocate Sergei Kovalyov, who has spent months in Chechnya, calls the new chief "a fanatic...