THE SECOND RUSSO-CHECHEN WAR
2. RUSSIA'S "NEW" STRATEGY IN CHECHNYA: AN UPDATE
By "Analyst"
A little more than a year has passed since President Putin announced a major shift in the Kremlin's Chechen policy. His attempt to break the impasse by declaring victory and shifting tack appears to have failed. All of the changes that were announced in early 2001 have been compromised, while the pledged "normalization" recedes into an indefinite future.
According to Moscow's repeated assurances, the war is for all practical purposes over and done with and the situation in Chechnya is stabilizing. Meanwhile all the old problems persist:
-- official corruption
-- brutality on the part of the demoralized and mutinous Russian troops
-- recurring attacks by the supposedly defeated insurgents
-- divisions between the Chechen civil administration headed by Akhmad Kadyrov, the republic government headed by Stanislav Ilyasov, and the military authorities now headed by the Federal Security Service (FSS).
Troop withdrawals?
Russian officials began backpedaling on the announced troop withdrawal soon after Putin's original announcement. The Kremlin's chief spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said that the withdrawal would be "limited" in scale: full-scale withdrawal was "out of the question." There was widespread opposition to the planned withdrawal, some of it public, among high-ranking military officers. The plan was, however, endorsed by Kadyrov and by the FSS leadership, revealing divisions between Kadyrov and the military as well as inter-service rivalries within the military/security apparatus.
It still remains unclear just how many troops have been withdrawn. The plan called for forces to be cut back from 90,000 to a permanent garrison of 25,000. Despite reported troop withdrawals and Moscow's continued insistence that Chechnya is being "de-militarized," the number of Russian troops according to some reports remains near the level of January 2001. For example, Ian Traynor claims (The Guardian 3/28/02) that 80,000 troops, including army, FSS, and Interior Ministry (MVD) forces, are still in Chechnya.
The war goes on
Despite claims (for instance by MVD General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov) that some Chechen "field commanders" have been killed in "special operations," conventional military operations have continued, including the use of air power against the supposedly defeated and disorganized insurgents. Thus on March 26, 2002 federal "frontline Su-24 bombers" were reported as striking a group of insurgents in a "mountainous region" of Chechnya. The week of March 25 also saw 47 "rebel attacks" on federal forces in Chechnya, while Argun and its environs apparently remain a hotspot even after the heavy fighting there last May which official sources portrayed as a "mopping up" operation to secure the area. Even Grozny remains unsecured and is considered one of the most dangerous places in Chechnya.
The mounting toll among Russian servicemen demonstrates that a war -- and not a mere "anti-terrorist operation" -- is still underway. According to an AVN report dated March 26, 2002, 2,331 defense ministry personnel had been killed in Chechnya (plus 118 in Dagestan) since August 8, 1999, 5,898 had been wounded, and 26 were missing. 889 internal (MVD) troops had been killed and 3,074 wounded. However, official casualty figures are widely viewed as understated. Russian officials claim that the insurgents have lost 12,760 killed in the conflict.
"Special operations," whatever limited successes can be attributed to them, are widely viewed as the chief recruiting tool of the insurgents. In a recent interview, Kadyrov, who has pushed for the demilitarization of the conflict and more reliance on local authorities, placed the blame for the continuing recruiting successes of the insurgents squarely on the brutality of the Russian "clean-up" operations (zachistki). This is a view widely shared by media observers. (1)
The demoralization and brutality of the Russian troops is indeed common knowledge. One reason is the men's frustration with their conditions of service. Some units have mutinied against extensions of their tours of duty, while others protest the state's failure to pay combat bonuses. (2) Some Russian soldiers have gone public with their complaints. On 26 March, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an open letter from the Cherepovets MVD SOBR (a special rapid reaction detachment) to the MVD leadership, detailing the complaints of the rank-and-file servicemen. The letter blasted "clever" Moscow-based "clerks" who insisted that "there is no war in Chechnya" and complained that combat bonuses had been halted. Field units were led by incompetent and inexperienced officers. The troops were left to fend for themselves. Front-line soldiers were reduced to seeking private "sponsors" to pay for "food, water, and bedding" as well as "bullet-proof helmets and flak jackets."
At the same time, the planned "Chechenization" of the conflict has not materialized, as distrust between the Russian authorities and the local Chechen militias remains high. Russian military authorities have made it clear that the militias would remain firmly under Moscow's control.
"Normalization"?
The repeatedly promised "normalization" of the republic, which was to entail a gradual transfer of power to mostly ethnic Chechen civilian authorities, has yet to materialize. Kadyrov, nominal chief of the "interim administration," and the Moscow-approved republic government have frequently been at odds. Although Stanislav Ilyasov, the ethnic Russian who heads the government, was formally appointed by Kadyrov (under considerable pressure from the Kremlin), he has been described as a "creature" of Viktor Kazantsev, the presidential representative for the Southern Federal District.
Kadyrov has been a constant critic of the Russian military leadership, arguing that only local civilian authority can restore peace in Chechnya. In his March 21 interview with Novaya Gazeta, he claimed that corrupt military and FSS officials are enriching themselves through the gasoline trade and other illicit activities and have little interest in de-militarizing the conflict.
While "normalization" efforts have been impeded by failure to win Chechen hearts and minds and by the insurgents' assassinations of "national traitors" who cooperate with the authorities, rampant official corruption has been no less of an obstacle. Vast sums earmarked for reconstruction have disappeared, prompting one observer to state that officials have embarked on a "virtual" reconstruction program. (3)
On March 21, Sergei Stepashin, chairman of the Russian Federation Comptroller's Office, held a press conference in Grozny at which he detailed numerous cases of embezzlement. The Kadyrov administration argued that only a real transfer of power to themselves could curb the thievery and ensure the eventual reconstruction of the republic -- a somewhat strained argument in light of their own record of corruption. (4)
Given the continuing hostilities, banditry, and assassinations and the authorities' failure to rebuild the republic's infrastructure, especially housing, it is small wonder that the planned return of the hundreds of thousands of refugees to their homeland has also not happened. Moscow appears to have attempted to force refugees to return as part of its plan to declare victory and create a propaganda-supported virtual "normalization" of the republic.
Conclusion
Thus Moscow's latest promises to change the procedures for "special operations" to prevent the brutalities of the past (after numerous announcements that Russian troops would halt certain types of these operations), rebuild the republic's infrastructure to facilitate the return of refugees, and reorganize the military command structure in Chechnya to aid the "normalization" and pacification of the devastated territory, (5) should be taken with a grain of salt.
In short, little appears to have changed in Chechnya in the two years since the federal forces suppressed the separatist regime.
Notes
(1) See, for instance, Novaia Gazeta 3/21/02.
(2) See Ian Traynor in The Guardian 3/28/02.
(3) Grozenskii Rabochii 8/9/01. The German press has reported extensively on the corruption that is impeding the reconstruction of the war-torn republic. See articles by Floran Hassel (Frankfurter Rundschau 3/14/02) and Thomas Avenarius (Sueddeutsche Zeitung 3/14/02).
(4) Kommersant 3/21/02.
(5) Ekho Moskvy radio reported (3/26/02) that the FSS may give up its role as "organizer and coordinator" of the Chechen operation.
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*** THIS IS CHECHNYA ***
[During a zachistka of the village of Bachi-Yurt,] according to Chechen militia officers, a federal serviceman who had no identifying insignia declared: "We're not getting fighting money or presidential payments, we're feeding fleas here because of you, and that's why we're going to rob, kill and rape and no one is going to stop us."
[Press release #172, 1/17/02]
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