A Nightmare War in a Remote Land

By Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow

We may lose Dagestan. Things are bad over there," ex-Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin said as he was surrendering his office last week. Bad they are: a new bout of fighting in Dagestan, a tiny Muslim republic of 2.1 million people and more than 30 ethnic groups in the Russian North Caucasus, is turning into a full-fledged war. In Moscow's political back rooms, there's fear it may evolve into something even more frightening: an excuse to cancel coming elections and clamp a state-of-emergency rule over Russia.

Just two days before Stepashin was fired, some 1,500 Islamic militants armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, bazookas, self-propelled antiaircraft guns and armor marched into Dagestan from Chechnya. The move was the latest, most violent shot in a creeping war that has been ravaging Dagestan since Russia's invasion of Chechnya in 1994. Russian federal forces have been continually engaged in action against Chechen raiders eager to see the coastal province of Dagestan annexed into land-locked Chechnya. The province is of vital strategic importance to Russia, representing 70% of the nation's frontage on the oil-producing Caspian Sea. It's a nightmare war: Russian troops and Dagestani cops have also had to tackle local Islamic militants intent on independence, and ruthless criminal gangs armed with world-class weapons. But Moscow insists on enforcing one law in particular: no secession from Mother Russia, even if the union has to be retained with Russian blood.

Moscow has more than 5,000 federal soldiers in Dagestan, along with nearly 300 pieces of armor, 50 pieces of heavy artillery, and 30 Grad missile launchers. "This force is as formidable as it is mismanaged," comments retired Colonel Victor Baranets, a military analyst. Says an eyewitness: "The troops have neither maps nor communication. They wear broken boots and mended fatigues. They don't have warm clothes or hot food."

But fierce fire fights in the Dagestani mountains are plenty hot. As the Chechens have become expert hostage takers, the area has turned into a no-transit zone for fearful aid workers, journalists and diplomats. Acting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has vowed "to restore order and discipline" in Dagestan in 10 to 14 days. He declined to say how, lest the enemy be informed. But few think such a simple solution is possible. "This might grow into a protracted local civil war," says Baranets.

Oddly, that may be what Yeltsin wants. Wars in the North Caucasus remain in some eyes a credible excuse for imposing a state of emergency on Russia. Leaders of the Federation Council (the upper house of the Russian Parliament) indicated last week that they would be receptive to emergency measures--a plan that would allow Yeltsin to postpone elections and engineer a less than democratic transition. Hints of that fear were on display last week, as police tightened security around government buildings, airports and railway stations. Patrols clad in bulletproof vests showed up in the Moscow subway, and armor rolled through Moscow's streets for the first time since the end of the Chechen war in 1996. Dagestan's war--being fought more than 1,000 miles away from Moscow--was finally coming home.

--By Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow