>
>At 05:42 PM 10/27/2002 -0500, Chris wrote:
>>Latest word from Moscow is that the television media have been ripping the
>>Kremlin apart limb from limb.
>
>as in the following:
>
>Moscow Times
>Saturday, Oct. 26, 2002. Page 10
>
>Is This the Beginning of the End for Putin?
>
>By Boris Kagarlitsky
I think this is partially true and partially just Kagarlitsky doing the "the end is nigh, and the left will soon come to power in Russia" thing he does whenever anything happens.
Kag publishes in Novaya Gazeta, which is a liberal mouthpiece with a very small audience, mostly of Westernizers. From what I've been told, most of the venom being spilled on the Kremlin right now is coming from television. (So much for the "Putin is turning the media into propaganda organs" that was popular in the West about a year and a half ago.)
To be honest, I think special forces did a damn professional job all in all, considering the available options. But the Kremlin line that the war in Chechnya has been won is of course a crock. (Though it is true that large-scale military actions have been replaced by guerrilla fighting.)
I've read other analysts claim that the hostage-taking is a sign of the rebels' weakness -- they only resorted to it in the first war when they started losing. We'll see. Hard to imagine how long they can functions with their Saudi funding (presumably) largely cut off by the UN because of the al-Qaeda links.
PS. LA-based Chechen propaganda site www.kavkaz.org has been offline for days now. Betcha 10-1 odds the US gov. closed it.
PPS. If you want my humble opinion, I don't think there IS a solution in Chechnya, military, political or otherwise. That war is going to drag on in various forms for decades.
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