#1 - JRL 6524
Moscow Times
October 31, 2002
Was It Just a Warning Shot?
By Pavel Felgenhauer

In June 1995, in the town of Budyonnovsk, Stavropol, a troop of rebels led by the notorious warlord Shamil Basayev captured a large hospital and took a thousand people hostage, demanding a cease-fire, the end of the war and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. After fighting in which more than a hundred hostages were killed, Basayev and his men were allowed to retreat safely back to Chechnya, and Moscow began peace talks with the rebels.

During the siege, then Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin was filmed, speaking in a submissive tone on the phone with Budyonnovsk, negotiating the release of the hostages and the safe return of the hostage-takers to Chechnya ("Shamil Basayev, speak louder, I cannot hear you").

The Budyonnovsk hostage-taking was the turning point in the 1994-96 Chechen war, after which the separatist movement gained in strength and popularity literally by the month. In 1996, after the rebels successfully defeated the Russian garrison and recaptured Grozny, a peace treaty that implied the full withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya was signed in Khasavyurt, Dagestan.

Before Budyonnovsk, federal forces, despite heavy casualties, were slowly but unrelentingly pushing deeper and deeper into Chechnya. By June 1995, the rebels were cornered in the southeast near the border with Dagestan and did not know what to do or where to go.

The rebels in 1995 were not prepared to fight a guerrilla war against superior enemy forces and had not yet established a network of civilian sympathizers to provide food, cover and vital intelligence. But the rebels did know that Russian soldiers and police could be easily bribed or intimidated, or both. So a column of heavily armed rebels in several trucks set out on a desperate, suicidal mission. The rebels crossed the whole of Chechnya and entered Budyonnovsk, where -- according to Basayev -- they ran out of dollars to bribe their way through check-points and were forced to begin an attack.

Among the ranks of the party that reached Budyonnovsk were almost all the rebel military leaders and warlords of significance, except for Aslan Maskhadov. They went on to attain prominence in Chechnya. And since the war resumed in 1999, virtually all of them have been killed in action. In fact, it is an ancient Chechen war tradition to launch a suicidal Japanese-style attack in a totally desperate military situation, with the warlords personally leading the assault.

The current situation for the rebels in Chechnya is grave, but not desperate. Their guerrilla campaign is well organized and proceeding with increasing deadliness. In the past two months, the rebels have shot down five military helicopters, killing up to 130 servicemen and wounding more than 30.

The hostage-taking attack in Moscow last week was led by a relatively low-level commander, Movsar Barayev, and it does not seem to be an act of desperation.

It may in fact be a final warning to the Kremlin that if it does not begin peace negotiations, the rebels could embark on a series of vicious terrorist attacks inside Russia.

Since the beginning of the current conflict in 1999, Maskhadov has -- time and again -- specifically ordered his supporters not to attack targets, particularly civilian ones, within Russia. However with the separatist movement becoming more radical, all restrictions may soon be dropped.

President Vladimir Putin apparently believes that the Kremlin's weakness in the Budyonnovsk crisis led directly to an overall defeat that threatened the unity, and indeed survival, of the Russian state. At the beginning of the current war, Putin vowed "there will be no new Khasavyurt, no new Budyonnovsk."

When it turned out that to ensure the release of hostages the Kremlin would be forced to begin negotiations with Maskhadov and possibly with Basayev as well, instead of phoning to ask questions, it ordered a reckless, badly prepared attack.

It's now clear that Putin never seriously intended to negotiate a political solution to the Chechen crisis, that as during the Moscow hostage crisis, the Kremlin relies only on brute force, disregarding any possible loss of innocent life. So the war will surely continue and spread, with Russia preparing to attack Georgia -- which it accuses of helping the rebels -- and the Chechens moving north to attack Russia proper.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.