CONFLICT IN CHECHNYA

March 2003
		The struggle for independence in Chechnya, now more than ten years old, has claimed thousands of lives and stunted economic growth in the small republic. What drives the conflict? Thomas de Waal, a journalist who has written extensively on Russia and the Caucasus, answers your questions on the complex situation. Mr. de Waal is editor of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's weekly Caucasus Reporting Service, which carries regular reports from Chechnya and can be found at www.iwpr.net.

Online NewsHour Special Report: Conflict in Chechnya Forum Introduction Why is Russia not letting Chechnya go since others were let out of the old Soviet Union? Do you feel that the Russian government's main interest in Chechnya has been the oil line that runs through the territory? If the Cold War is supposedly over, why does the American Press so play up the unrealistically anti-Russian angle of "the Chechens are (supposedly) freedom fighters, and the Russians are oppressors?" Are there any lessons to be learned from the struggle in Chechnya in terms of urban warfare and the particular challenge it presents? Do you see any chance for a future potential political settlement between Moscow and separatist Chechen leaders?

The Online NewsHour asks a question echoed by other viewers: Are there any lessons to be learned from the struggle in Chechnya in terms of urban warfare and the particular challenge it presents? Thomas de Waal responds: This question has even more deadly resonance, given what is going on in Iraq at the moment and with the prospect of the U.S. and U.K. having to fight their way into Basra or Baghdad. The Russian military defeat in Grozny on New Year's Eve 1994 was one of the most terrible failures in modern warfare. Probably more than a thousand Russian soldiers died in the assault and by one estimate the Russians lost more tanks in Grozny than they did in the battle for Berlin in 1945. The military lesson is that it is incredibly difficult to win an urban battle against an enemy which knows its surroundings better than you do. In a relatively undemocratic country like Russia, the political costs of that are not so devastating, but if any Western government had suffered a humiliation like that it would probably have had to resign.