>
> BTW I'd be skepitical about this since it presupposes that the Kremlin was
> facing strong domestic pressure to end the war, which it wasn't. I
> personally don't know any Russians who are anti-war, and even if a strong
> antiwar sentiment existed, given the fatalistic and politically apathetic
> psychology of most of the population, it would take a long, long time to
> mobilioze itself.
Dear, dear... the program looked pretty dodgy, interviewing a few 'liberal' Russians and 'intelligence experts' who really didn't look convincing. This from the channel that brought us the Mugabe propaganda stuff on Tsangarai's meeting with that Israeli fantasist. SBS needs to get a better fact checkers.
The story that I received elsewhere was that the Moscow siege people had made much more minimalist demands than was reported. At the time it sounded as if they wanted Putin to run around with his pants down and then immediately get all the troops out of Chechnia. What I heard was that they had wanted peace talks to begin. That would make sense - maximal action, minimal demands is more likely to pay off than maximal action with maximal demands.
Thiago