Word: yeltsin
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Responding to widespread criticism over the number of civilian casualties in his offensive against Chechnya, Russian President Boris Yeltsin today ordered an end to the air strikes responsible for many of the deaths and the virtual destruction of Grozny, the Chechen capital. While he said the door was open to peace talks, Yeltsin also insisted that Chechnya had no right to secede from Russia and his air power would continue to bombard military targets in the republic. "Russian soldiers are defending the integrity of Russia," Yeltsin said in his speech. "The regime in Grozny is illegitimate. It violates the fundamental...
...that's gone," he says. Furthermore, Zarakhovich, who witnessed the sacking of Grozny from the front lines a week ago, says that the events might portend "the beginning of the end of the Russian federation." The attacks, Zarakhovich notes, stunned many Russians who are beginning to wonder whether "Yeltsin would use the same kind of force if he had problems in Moscow...
...same sentiments rang through Moscow. Dread of a prolonged guerrilla war that might not be confined to Chechnya -- the rebels have threatened terrorist attacks on Russian nuclear-power stations -- united communists, leaders of the once pro-Yeltsin Russia's Choice party and many other politicians in condemnation of the invasion. Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultranationalists were the only major faction to voice even tepid support...
...great fear of democratic politicians is that Russia's fledgling institutions of free government are too fragile to withstand a draining, divisive war. Yeltsin and his onetime democratic allies are already increasingly isolated and on the defensive against the tacit "red-brown" alliance of communists and ultranationalists. If democratic forces now become wholly estranged from the President, the odds increase that military factions disgruntled with Yeltsin's handling of the Chechen crisis might stage a long- predicted military coup, neatly disguised as a necessary crackdown to prosecute the war. But the army itself is also divided; some officers far higher...
Chechnya could bring down Yeltsin and/or democracy...