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Putin`s Chechen war to grind on after elections
Moscow, Mar 10: Restoring Russian rule in Chechnya was Vladimir Putin`s ``big idea`` that helped thrust him into the Kremlin. Four years on, the rebels are still fighting -- but fortunately for Putin, voters have largely lost interest.
Moscow, Mar 10: Restoring Russian rule in Chechnya was Vladimir Putin's ''big idea'' that helped thrust him into the Kremlin. Four years on, the rebels are still fighting -- but
fortunately for Putin, voters have largely lost interest.
So as he cruises toward a second term on Sunday, there is little sign of any change in approach from a president who has resolved to hold no peace talks with the Muslim guerrillas.
From late 1999, Russian forces fought their way back into the towns they had lost in a humiliating defeat three years earlier under President Boris Yeltsin, underpinning then Prime Minister Putin's bid to be elected Yeltsin's successor in 2000. Now, bloody attacks in Moscow blamed on Chechens have failed to turn the grinding war into an election issue for most Russians, despite a mounting toll of military losses.
''I do not see any reason why the policy should change. It should continue. It has already borne fruit,'' Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Kremlin's spokesman on Chechnya, said last month.
Bureau Report
From late 1999, Russian forces fought their way back into the towns they had lost in a humiliating defeat three years earlier under President Boris Yeltsin, underpinning then Prime Minister Putin's bid to be elected Yeltsin's successor in 2000. Now, bloody attacks in Moscow blamed on Chechens have failed to turn the grinding war into an election issue for most Russians, despite a mounting toll of military losses.
''I do not see any reason why the policy should change. It should continue. It has already borne fruit,'' Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Kremlin's spokesman on Chechnya, said last month.
Bureau Report