I understand, different times, different presidents, different backroom conversations, and probably different secrets.

But the price is one: human lives.

After this—the September bombings in Moscow, the bombing in Volgodonsk, the famous "Wipe them out in the outhouse" and universal jubilation.

At that time, we were in an election campaign. I think that Grigory Yavlinsky's constant warnings about the danger of a new, big Chechen war then lowered Yabloko's rating.

To hell with the rating!

How many guys fell then during the assault on Grozny! How many die there every day!

In late December '99, I wrote in "Novaya Gazeta":

"I forgot that this map hangs on my wall.

Next to photographs of my friends—living, dead, and fallen.

In 1995, this map was secret: there were Chechens—there were Russians. A border between two lives. A border—between life and death.

I asked our friend (our—that means one thing: people are above money), a former colonel of the internal troops, who fought then and knows the situation today, to walk me through this map.

He did. He, who knows every village and every mountain.

Here's what happened: Russian troops are in the same place they were in 1995.

THE SAME PLACE.

Let's sort this out. Let's...

What's more important? People or the country?

Putin is building his career on the deaths of no less than two thousand young men in November 1999 (believe me—my comrade, who returned from Bamut, having sustained five wounds in these years of our recent history, gave me this figure), but their mothers, their wives, their children are not thinking about the country. They have become lonely.

Yes, the guys are eager to fight.

But who are they fighting? What do they mean by "militants"?

A year ago I was in Grozny. I was guarded by guys from Maskhadov's presidential guard. That is, just a year ago, we recognized them. Who is fighting today?

Yes, mercenaries, who, incidentally, infiltrate Chechnya not through Georgia, but through Russia (for money, of course, even blacks!).

Yes, terrorists (Khattab, Basayev, Raduyev, etc.), whose security is ensured by Russian generals.

This is important for our understanding of the Caucasian war.

Who else is fighting?

Those whom we ourselves made into fighters—Chechen children who grew up under the bombs of 1995.

Russian soldiers die with the word "Hurrah." But behind that "hurrah"—money, about which the dying boys know nothing.

I will cite the testimony of Colonel S.K. from the General Staff, from that very first war (it just came into my hands):

"I was then at Zavgayev's and Koshman's residence at 'Severny' (the airport in Grozny: that's why Zavgayev was nicknamed Stewardess. - Yu. Shch.).

Every day planes arrived—KamAZ trucks immediately backed up to the ramp, where bags of money were unloaded... Up to a dozen vehicles passed through daily... The last meeting with Koshman, attended by nineteen ministers. Koshman says: 'Here are fifty-five billion rubles. You have a teip. Take the money for yourself. Is there somewhere in your teip to direct funds?' The man mumbled something. Bags of money were spread around the office. This was December 1996."

December 1996... 55 billion... The end of the first Chechen war. Koshman—Vice Premier in 1999.

And the guys are dying.

Once again: in whose name is the Chechen war being waged and who needs it?

Yes, terrorism, terrorists...

But not a single terrorist leader has been eliminated.

Who is dying then? For what? Why?

So that Koshman would share money? So that again, like five years ago, during the first Chechen war, money would be allocated from the budget to support "ecology and fisheries" in Chechnya?

So that not a single one of our special services would find out where the Chechens get the most modern Russian weapons (no matter how many times I asked our military leaders to give me at least one serial number of a sniper rifle made in Tula in 1999 and found with the Chechens—silence in response). Yes, the army must not be humiliated any longer.