Russia Announces Formal End Of 'Counterterror' Operation In Chechnya
posted by circassiankama on April, 2009 as CHECHNYA
April 16, 2009
Russia Announces Formal End Of 'Counterterror' Operation In Chechnya
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's April 16 decree formally ending the
counterterror operation in Chechnya is being touted as a major
propaganda victory for Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov, and
possibly even as heralding the republic's de facto independence from
the Russian Federation. In fact, however, it will change very little on
the ground.
For
the past several years, the Russian military has played little part in
the desultory low-level fighting. The Chechen resistance still operates
in the southern districts of the republic, taking and then
relinquishing temporary control of individual villages, but its primary
target is not the Russian troops but the pro-Moscow units loyal to
Kadyrov.
In line with Medvedev's decree, up to 20,000 of the
50,000 Russian troops deployed in Chechnya will be withdrawn, possibly
to the two new Russian bases currently under construction in
Karachayevo-Cherkessia and at Botlikh in Daghestan. But according to
State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, at least one Interior Ministry
regiment -- the 46th -- will remain in Chechnya permanently.
Kadyrov himself was quoted by regnum.ru
on April 16 as saying that is imperative that some Russian Defense
Ministry and Interior Ministry troops remain in Chechnya, "not because
there is any danger of banditism and terrorism, but in the event of an
external threat. We have to defend Russia as a whole, and the Caucasus
in particular."
For Kadyrov, the main advantage of the formal
end of the counterterror operation launched by then-Russian President
Boris Yeltsin in 1999 at the beginning of the second war is economic.
It will pave the way for the establishment of customs posts at Grozny
airport -- which will receive international status -- and at Chechnya's
border with Georgia. Indeed, it was the pressing need for such economic
liberalization, as a precondition for attracting much-needed foreign
investment, that Kadyrov stressed on March 25 when he first predicted
that Moscow was about to announce the end of the counterterror
operation by the end of the month.
To infer, however, that
Medvedev's decree paves the way for Kadyrov to parlay the already
considerable autonomy he enjoys vis-a-vis the federal center into
virtual independence ignores the fact that Chechnya is still dependant
on subsidies from the federal center for the lion's share of its annual
budget -- 24.5 billion rubles ($734.5 million) in 2009. Moreover, the
Russian company Russneft still controls the extraction, export, and
refining of Chechnya's oil and has systematically opposed all attempts,
both by Kadyrov and his late father, to secure total control of the
remaining oil reserves.
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