Wheel of war

Four years after the Russian-Chechen war started, Russia got a pretty deplorable result from its actions. The Resistance right inside Chechnya is not growing any weaker at all, the conflict is getting more and more aggravated and apparently it has already crossed that borderline where compromise was possible, like the «Khasavyurt Accord». The war party has always been condemning the traitors, who did not let the brave warriors finish off the Chechens during the first war. But now it is clear for everybody that back then the so-called «traitors» were the ones who saved the «honor of the uniform» for the Russian army. General Lebed was admitting straight out that in 1996 that in the Chechen capital liberated by the Chechen Mujahideen a parade of Russian prisoners-of-war was already being prepared, like the one the Soviet Union had with German POWs. The infamy was no joke, and that thing alone was what justified peace agreements with Maskhadov for the Russians.

But today the Kremlin's regime has gotten itself into a deadlock, where under the existing regime there is no way out at least for the next couple of years. And the war has been continuing for four years, and time-wise it can be compared to the WW II. And if you add the two years of the first war, - that's almost like the Afghan epopee.

The war has the logic of development: as time goes by, more and more nations, countries and territories get drawn into the conflict, let alone all sorts of groups. A war cannot remain in just one phase for too long: it either dies down when one side gets defeated, or it tends to expand. In our case we apparently have the latter.

The war operation designed to «uproot terrorism» in Chechnya has led to the fact that today the entire Russia is turning into an arena of retaliatory measures of the avengers. The Chechen people were «liberated» so much that they are now ready to do anything just to get rid of Russia.

So far the West is speculating on the Russian-Chechen war while trying to get unprecedented concessions from Russia in exchange for its silence. There is a process of compiling draft materials on Chechnya going on for sure: the day will come and the political need will instantly turn the Western governments into upholders of human rights and protectors of suppressed nations. Chechen nation will certainly be the first since they «turned out to have been subjected to genocide!», «and it happened in Europe in the 21st century!».

But right now it's not the time yet, and the West is keeping silence so far. And meanwhile the conflict is threatening to spread onto the neighboring territories of the Northern Caucasus, and was just about to spread into Transcaucasia, into Georgia.

Strategy-wise, the most vulnerable republics are Dagestan and Ingushetia. It is because of their geographical location as well - they are Chechnya's closest neighbors. It is also due to the internal situation in these republics, which is far from being stable. Let's not forget about the common interest of the army and secret services to get the new «battleground», which promises promotions, fast career and mad money from robbed population and plundered military budget.

The fact that the expansion of the conflict already bears a real threat to Russia's integrity does not concern the Kermlin much. Just as it doesn't concern Putin's opposition, which in turn wouldn't mind to get this kind of trump card in the pre-elections game. This is their personal group interest that dictates them the advantage of such a way the situation will develop, and group interests have always been prevailing over the state interests in the history of new Russia.

Yeltsin came to power with the collapse of the USSR, and Russian-Chechen war was what brought Putin to power. This war has never contributed to Russia's consolidation. Political nearsightedness of the leaderships of both republics is surprising. They decided to elect the president in Dagestan, for which they ratified the new constitution. There is a great chance that presidential elections in that multi-ethnic republic may serve as a detonator of an inter-ethnic explosion. The existing system of government in Dagestan has had some similarity of a truce. Lean compromise with recurring conflicts and systematic criminal skirmishes, but still some kind of peace.

Ingushetia has its own problems that started to get aggravated lately. The main problem is refugees, whom Russia's leadership ordered to be sent back to Chechnya. There are various ways they are promoting it: they cut the humanitarian aid and transfer it to Chechnya; they turn off the electricity, gas and water. Lately they have resorted to radical methods: they started to conduct cleansings in refugee camps. People started to disappear in Ingushetia as well. Some unknown secret services are conducting so-called «residential cleansings» in «suspicious residences» and taking everybody away by the principle: «we'll figure it out when we get there».

Over a dozen of Chechen residents, mainly young men, have been killed by the officers of Ingushetian police during all sorts of raids, actions, etc. Right now it is done pretty easy: they open fire and then they plant a grenade on them - like they were allegedly suicide bombers. The number of killed Ingushetian police officers is growing each day as well. The situation is like a snowball and it looks like there is somebody who makes it more and more aggravated artificially.

The fight against the believers got more active as well. Mainly young people are targeted and accused of being «Wahhabites». It went as far as the Muftis of the Republic of Ingushetia prohibit people from praying wherever they want and whenever they want. For some reason, law enforcement agencies get involved in all of these seemingly religious arguments, which is far from mitigating the tension. Some are actively trying to turn the discords in Islamic rituals into unpredictable confrontation between various groups of believers.