MOSCOW, 31 July 2003 — Five Russian soldiers were killed yesterday in an attack in a southern republic neighboring separatist Chechnya that fanned fears of the four-year guerrilla war spilling over to other regions of southern Russia.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov appealed to the international community to step in and mediate an end to a Russian campaign that he said had left his mostly Muslim republic “a humanitarian disaster zone.”
The latest attack — which Russia immediately labeled a “terrorist act” — struck near the Ingush village of Galashki situated some 10 kilometers west of the Chechen border. A truck filled with Defense Ministry soldiers was blown up by a remote-controlled explosive device — one of the Chechen weapons of choice in the brutal campaign.
Four soldiers died on the spot and another died later in hospital. One soldier remained injured and in serious condition. Russian President Vladimir Putin met senior military official after the incident and admitted that “while the situation in the republic is returning to normal, a lot of the problems have not yet been solved.”
Official statistics vary but up to 5,000 Russian troops and about 15,000 rebels are believed to have died since Putin launched the second Chechen war in October 1999. The violence at times spills over into the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan where large numbers of Chechens live and enjoy widespread support.
Ingushetia in particular has close ties to Chechnya since the two formed a single republic in the Soviet era before splitting up when the present Russian Federation was formed in 1991. The Ingush republic’s president, Murat Zyazikov, quickly cautioned that there was no reason for the estimated 80,000 Russian troops fighting in Chechnya to move into his own republic because of yesterday’s attack.
He argued that the war in Chechnya could not spread to Ingushetia because the situation there was firmly under the authorities’ control. “It is true that there are forces that want to expand the conflict” to Ingushetia, he said. “But there will be no second Chechnya in Ingushetia. The situation is under control.”
Putin refuses to negotiate with Chechnya’s guerrilla leaders and instead has tried to end the conflict by staging a controversial constitutional referendum in March, the results of which cemented the republic’s status within Russia. At the same time the Russian leader has said Chechnya would receive “autonomy in the broadest sense of the word” after it elects a new president on Oct. 5.
Acting Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov is seen as the overwhelming favorite in the race and as Moscow’s choice to head the restive republic — although he tried to distance himself from the Kremlin yesterday.
“I want to run as an independent candidate. In my opinion, the future president of Chechnya should not be tied to political organizations,” Kadyrov said in televised remarks.
Maskhadov’s top spokesman, Aslambek Maigov, dismissed suggestions that the presidential election would end the war and said any vote run amid a military campaign was by definition invalid.
Instead Maigov repeated an earlier call for some form of international institution —such as the United Nations or the European Union — to take control of the Chechen administration for a “transitional period” during which the rebels and Moscow would negotiate peace.
“President Maskhadov has said that he would be willing to work for such an administration,” said the spokesman for the Chechen leader, who has remained in hiding since the second war began.
Russia has refused suggestions that foreign institutions should be allowed to mediate peace talks with Chechnya.
Meanwhile, the suspected serial killer targeting young Moscow women appeared to have struck again as police said yesterday they had found another body in the north of the Russian capital. The body of an 18-year-old student was found in Moscow’s Khimki neighborhood late Tuesday, police told the Interfax news agency.
Like most of the other nine victims of the suspected killing spree that began on July 1, she was naked and strangled and none of her belongings had been stolen.
Police said they had arrested suspects in two other murders initially believed to be linked. Those two women were killed by blows to the head, one after an argument and the other after a robbery, Itar-Tass reported.
Panic has spread across the Russian capital despite reluctance by Moscow police to classify the eerily similar murders as the work of a serial killer.
Nearly all 10 female victims were young and walking alone late at night in northern or northeastern Moscow, often near a park or pond. Some victims were sexually assaulted, but none appears to have been raped, and none of their belongings taken.
