Invited by RFE/RL to speculate about Putin's motives for beginning the war, Maskhadov replied that it is not clear whether Moscow's priority is to defend Russia's territorial integrity or to defend Russia's regional and defense interests. He pointed out that Chechnya is a relatively small republic encompassing only 17,000 square kilometers, and that "while Russia has been at war with Chechnya, the Chinese have occupied the whole of Primorskii Krai and Trans-Baikal."
Maskhadov denied that his January cease-fire offer was prompted by the abduction of his relatives. Asked how the situation will develop if peace talks do not take place in the near future, Maskhadov said, "the war will continue.... Chechen mujahedin will resist to the end in this struggle, and the flame of this conflagration will spread to the entire North Caucasus." And in seeming contrast to his earlier prohibition on terrorist acts outside Chechnya and directed against the Russian civilian population (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 18 June 2003), Maskhadov continued: " The people of Russia will experience constant fear of possible retribution by suicide bombers in revenge for the evil deeds of the [Federal Security Service] and the federal forces in Chechnya."
Maskhadov did, however, admit the possibility that "when the interests of Western states and those of Russia collide in the Caucasus, when the leaders of those Western states comprehend the level of danger to the entire civilized world that emanates from Russia, then they will line up and beg us Chechens to agree to end the war."
Asked about the West's role, Maskhadov said the West is sitting it out, playing with Putin and trying to achieve its own global strategic objectives, and that the Russian leadership for its part is taking advantage of Western forbearance to "continue to commit monstrous crimes on Chechen territory."
Maskhadov dismissed as "risible" the proposed roundtable on Chechnya to be convened by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's (PACE) rapporteur for Chechnya, Swiss parliamentarian Andreas Gross. That event is scheduled for later this month, but the venue remains unclear. The Council of Europe originally proposed Strasbourg, but over the past week several members of the pro-Moscow Chechen government have insisted that it should be held in Grozny. The interlocutors are Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen officials; Gross tried to include Maskhadov's representatives, but his envoy Umar Khanbiev declined to attend. Khanbiev told the information agency Daymohk on 2 March that Maskhadov has ordered the Chechen Foreign Ministry to consider "freezing" all contacts with PACE.
Maskhadov contemptuously dismissed the various pro-Moscow Chechen "bandit formations" running loose in Chechnya as "traitors" to the Chechen cause, adding that this phenomenon dates back to the 1994-96 Chechen war when mavericks such as Ruslan Labazanov, Umar Avturkhanov and Bislan Gantamirov headed such bands. The difference, according to Maskhadov, is that those commanders "had brains," the inference being that Ramzan Kadyrov does not.
Maskhadov admitted that occasional clashes occurred in 1994-96 between such bands and the resistance forces (of which he at that time was commander in chief), and that he personally participated in such clashes, but that they were never protracted. He said that "history should teach us" that Chechens should never fight among themselves, and he went on to claim that "there is a clear understanding -- and I mean today -- how a Chechen from one side or the other should behave during a forced clash. Not a single self-respecting Chechen policeman...would ever refuse help to the mujahedin," because those Chechen police know how the war will end, and that "tomorrow we shall have to live together."
Maskhadov implied that Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Patrushev was the "godfather" of the pro-Moscow Chechen police force and that Patrushev created that force in the hope of triggering a civil war in Chechnya -- but to no avail.
The complete text of the interview is here
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