No Way Out?

VLADIMIR VELENGURIN/KP FOR TIME
Chechen policemen loyal to Moscow raid a home in Alkhan-Kala

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Various peace plans have been suggested for turning things around in Chechnya. One of the most detailed, put forward by Khasbulatov, speaks of giving Chechnya autonomy "under international supervision" within the Russian Federation. But Putin is opposed to anything that weakens Moscow's writ. And many Chechens believe with equal force that their only hope is independence.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, no supporter of the Chechen struggle, writes in 1973's The Gulag Archipelago that of all the people in the Soviet camps and in exile, the Chechens were from the "one nation which would not give in, would not acquire the mental habits of submission." The Chechens have lived up to that description. Unlike President Bush with Iraq, Putin can make sure Russians are not reminded of the Chechnya quagmire on a daily basis on TV. But silence is no solution. "I am here because it's the only job I know how to do," says Mikhail, a noncommissioned officer with the militarized forces of Russia's Interior Ministry, as he feeds a cat in the tightly guarded garrison that protects the Chechen government headquarters in Grozny. "This war is a f______ mess." Chechnya may not be Putin's undoing in the coming elections, but its endless nightmare is likely to haunt him in his second term.