The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9911/15/text/world6.html Besieged Grozny about to be razed Date: 15/11/99 By NEELA BANERJEE in Moscow, and agencies Moscow has announced its biggest victory yet in the seven-week Chechen war with the capture of Gudermes, the rebel republic's second city, and claimed it would become the new Chechen capital. The Kremlin has ordered all civilians to abandon the current Chechen capital, Grozny, signalling that it was poised to raze the city. ''The city of Grozny cannot be restored,'' said Mr Nikolai Koshman, a Russian deputy prime minister who is Moscow's viceroy in Chechnya. The evacuation of the city will force tens of thousands more refugees into the bitter winter cold, compounding the crisis already unfolding among more than 300,000 people who have fled or are trying to flee the Russian onslaught. Basking in the important Gudermes victory and enjoying far more popularity than any Russian politician in recent memory, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin confirmed his plans at the weekend to run for the presidency in mid-2000. ''As far as running for president goes, that was a question put to me the first day of my tenure as the head of the Government and I answered then affirmatively,'' he said after a meeting on Friday with Russian generals. ''And as you know, I don't take back my words.'' Russian military aircraft had been shelling Gudermes for over a week, and by Saturday Russian generals were shown on television raising the flag over a local theatre to the national anthem. The victory was seen by many as a sign of how weary the Chechens had grown of war. ''There's a great tiredness among Chechens after years of war and the last few years of de facto independence that hasn't led to anything, not even the formation of a viable government,'' said Mr Dmitry Trenin, an expert on the Russia military with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ''Even if you look at the refugees, there are plenty of men of fighting age who aren't fighting.'' The Gudermes victory can only further fuel the steady climb of Mr Putin's approval ratings. He has soared past other contenders, mainly due to Russia's apparent success in the Chechen campaign. When asked if they approve of Mr Putin's actions as prime minister, 76 per cent of those polled said ''yes'' in November, compared with 52 per cent in September, in a survey by the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
