Posted Sunday, September 28, 2003; 12.48BST
The mountain district of Vedeno, 55 km southeast of Grozny, is another area where Moscow has lost its grip. Though Vedeno is less than 34 km across, Shamil Basayev — the man behind many of the recent suicide bombings as well as last year's Moscow theater siege — moves unhindered through the territory. Vedeno is controlled by Russian troops during the day and "bearded ones" — fundamentalist guerrillas — at night, locals say. One recent evening masked men came to the house of Vedeno's mufti, whom they accused of collaboration. They shot him and a relative. Before torching the house, the attackers pulled the mufti's bedridden mother from the building. She asked where her son was, says a kinsman, Paigir. "He's with his relatives, the federals [Russians]," a masked man replied mockingly.

Paigir's family now intends to mete out justice the traditional way: track down the killers themselves. Over a dinner of mutton and dumplings in a Grozny suburb, Paigir told how he had avenged his family on five Wahhabis who murdered his brother. He found the men; three were arrested, he says, and "we handled the other two." His friends at dinner all nod in approval. Blood revenge is still very much alive in Chechnya, and will only increase if Chechens start fighting each other in a civil war.

But many doubt the Russians will ever manage to leave. "Russian generals have zero enthusiasm" for Chechenization, says the Russian-appointed Deputy Premier Doshukayev, because there's too much money to be made here. The arms and explosives that kill Russian troops come straight from the Russian bases, local people and foreign observers say. Russians deal the weapons on the black market even though they'll be used to kill fellow soldiers. Guerrillas don't have to smuggle hardware into Chechnya, says the pro-Kadyrov newspaper editor Lechi Magomayev: "They can buy them at the nearest base." Chechen officials say the military is also involved in oil smuggling and other rackets.

The Kremlin has tried to crush the revolt by air strikes, house-to-house sweeps and now, its critics assert, by abductions

For now, Kadyrov can confidently look forward to election. Both he and Putin insist they have nothing to do with the abrupt departures of his rivals. Chechen government workers in the center of Grozny were dismantling a large campaign advertisement for multimillionaire Malik Saidullayev — possibly the most serious challenger — several days before he was struck off the ballot on a technicality. Students at Grozny University say they will vote for no one. "That's the way most people here feel," laughs the Chechen official Kerim.

To turn things around, some have suggested peace plans. One of the most detailed, put forward by former speaker of the Russian parliament Ruslan Khasbulatov, who is Chechen, 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.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, no supporter of the Chechen struggle, wrote in The Gulag Archipelago that of all the people in the Soviet camps and in exile, the Chechens were "the only nation who would not give in, would not acquire the mental habits of submission." The Chechens have lived up to that description. Unlike President Bush and Iraq, Putin can make sure Russians are not reminded of the Chechen 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 Russia's Interior Forces, as he feeds a cat in the tightly guarded garrison that protects the Chechen government headquarters in Grozny. "This war is a f___ing 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.

With reporting by Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow

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