Word: chechnya
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When Russia first sent troops to Chechnya, the world reacted with deep uncertainty. On the one hand, the use of force was frowned upon. On the other, Russia certainly had the right to police its own territory. As Russia's "little war" has become increasingly bloody though, the confusion has yielded to condemnation--with good reason...
However, the legitimacy of the Chechen secession still leaves observers puzzled. What would happen if all of the communities Russia has absorbed over the years were to break away? This is an unsettling thought, and one that is no doubt a large part of Russia's motivation. Chechnya does, however, have a strong claim to independence. It is a distinct community ethnically and religiously. Its desire for independence has been long-standing and is deeply embedded, as the ferocious defense of Grozny, the Chechen capital, indicates...
Russian President Boris Yeltsin reinvented the credibility gap for the '90s with his promises not to bomb civilians in Chechnya...
...loud in the Russian capital last week -- arises not out of the usual Moscow rumor mill but from the country's desperate need for explanations. Worried Russians are struggling to understand why there is such an obvious, crashing contrast between what Yeltsin says about the nasty little war in Chechnya and what everyone knows is really happening in the secessionist North Caucasus republic...
What no one knows is what is really happening in the Kremlin, and Russians and foreigners alike find themselves rehoning the deductive tools of what used to be called Kremlinology. The way the Chechnya crisis is being mishandled suggests Yeltsin's presidency and Russia's fragile political liberalization may be in danger. Is Yeltsin going to go down in history as the first President of a democratic Russia or as one more overseer of an authoritarian state...