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Thursday, 13 January, 2000, 12:48 GMT
Chechens feel Russia's might
![]() Men are facing tough border checks
By Andrew Harding on the Chechen border
Russia's war in Chechnya was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks. But it has dragged on. Casualties among Russian troops are on the rise, and Moscow now says all men between the ages of 10 and 60 are being considered potential rebel fighters. At Russian checkpoints on the Chechen border, men are being blocked from crossing. At one border post, I saw a crowd of about 200 angry Chechen men, all civilians, who had been able to come and go freely.
Now their path was being blocked by Russian soldiers, under orders not to let any adult males under 60 pass through.
"Not all men in Chechnya support this war. This war has been imposed on them both by Russia and by more radical elements within Chechen society." Mistakes repeated Comparisons with the last Chechen war of 1994-96 are being made all the time now.
"The Kremlin is repeating all the mistakes made in the previous war. I don't see any serious differences in military strategy from what we saw four years ago," Vyacheslav Nikonov, one of Russia's leading political analysts, said. He was not optimistic about the future. "We see the Russian army occupying the territory and the Chechens infiltrating back and starting guerrilla activities there. So it is absolutely the same scenario and I am afraid that the result might be also the same," Mr Nikonov said. The Kremlin, however, insists that this time things will be different. This war may be as savage as the last one but Russia now has more troops on the ground and more determination to finish the job at all costs.
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