Backfire Against Russia

Russian military leaders had promised that their latest campaign to smash rebel forces in Chechnya would be swift and successful, unlike the 20-month effort that ended in humiliating failure in 1996. Instead, Russian commanders now appear to have consigned their troops to a quagmire once again. This week they sent a tank column into Grozny, Chechnya’s capital. The result was a disaster.

According to reporters for Reuters and the Associated Press, several thousand Chechen fighters attacked the Russian force with rocket-propelled grenades and rifles. When the Russians retreated they left behind at least 115 dead. Moscow’s defense minister denies that any battle took place, and officials in the Russian capital, echoing Soviet-era claims, insist that contrary reports are inspired by “foreign special services” as part of a campaign to influence Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

Until now, Russian public opinion has backed the war, seeing it as a justified response to a series of deadly bombings in Russia earlier this year that the government blamed on Chechen terrorists. But popular backing could quickly erode if army casualties mount, as they did in the 1994-96 war. That’s why Russia has tried to do most of its fighting at long range, with bombs and artillery. Grozny has been devastated, but while hundreds if not thousands of civilians have been killed, Chechen fighters--on the evidence of this week’s ambush--apparently survive in great numbers. Russian officials dare not admit that or acknowledge their losses.

The European Union is now threatening to withdraw trade privileges, including possibly Russia’s most-favored-nation status, if Moscow doesn’t agree to seek a political solution to the conflict. President Clinton has also warned of serious if unspecified consequences. Russia’s consistent response is that Chechnya is an internal matter and it won’t bow to foreign pressures to resolve it by negotiations.

Western pressure should be kept up, for it seems clear that Russia’s military and political leaders are determined to wage war until the last Chechen is dead, if that’s what it takes to impose Moscow’s will. A political solution could be crafted to reaffirm the de facto autonomy within the Russian union won by Chechnya in 1996, while saving face for Moscow. Absent that, many more Chechen civilians and Russian soldiers seem destined to die in an open-ended conflict that defies a military solution.