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So far the hard line is paying political dividends for Putin. But columnists and rival politicians have openly voiced suspicions about the official line that Basayev and his Jordanian lieutenant, Khattab, were behind the wave of apartment bombings. Even if Islamic extremists set off the blasts, skeptics say, the Russian "special services" may have guided their hand. In fact, Basayev has had a long and murky relationship with Russian intelligence. By one account he was paid by Moscow to lead a mercenary group during fighting in Abkhazia, one of the local wars that flared up in the south after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In a recent interview with TIME, Krasnoyarsk governor and presidential contender Alexander Lebed--who negotiated a peace deal with Chechnya in 1996--said bluntly that Basayev was a longtime KGB "informer" who, he added, retained "levers of influence" in Moscow.
But for now, the military mobilization appears unchecked. The invasion plan has been widely leaked to the press (thus giving the Chechens plenty of time to prepare). Russian troops are expected to take over the plains of northern Chechnya, dig in there, then continue south. They want to push the Chechen fighters into the mountains by the onset of winter and let them slowly starve--"put them through the deep freeze," says a military source. While the guerrillas are withering in the mountains, Russia will form a government of "healthy political forces," a Soviet-era term for puppets. This will probably be built around a handful of undistinguished former Chechen members of the Russian Duma who have been living in exile in Moscow. There will almost certainly be no room for current Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, the former Russian army officer whom Moscow had once viewed as a moderate.
The plan is an amazing act of amnesia. Russia has never fully conquered the Caucasus in all its turbulent history. More often, its forces have ended up like a certain Comrade Chernoglaz, a regional Communist Party chief in the 1920s. During a pacification campaign, he was ambushed and decapitated. At their trial, his killers were asked what had happened to Chernoglaz's head. "He had no head," they answered. "Otherwise he would not have tried to conquer us."
--With reporting by Douglas Waller/Washington and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow