Blowing Up Russia by Alexander Litvinenko Read Free Book Online Page B

killing, but in this case, the contract was put out by the leadership of the state. The oral, but nonetheless official, order to eliminate Dudaev was given by Russian President Yeltsin. The prehistory to this decision is vague and mysterious. Some time after May 20, 1995, informal negotiations began between the Russian and Chechen sides on a cessation of military operations and the signing of a peace agreement. On the Chechen side, the negotiations were organized by the former General Public Prosecutor of Chechnya, Usman Imaev, and on the Russian side by the well-known businessman, Arkady Volsky. The Russians tried to persuade the Chechens to capitulate. On behalf of the Russian leadership, Volsky offered Dudaev the chance to leave Chechnya for any other country on his own terms (as Yeltsin put it: anywhere he wants, and the farther from Russia the better ).

The meeting with Dudaev was far from pleasant for Volsky. Dudaev felt he had been insulted, and he was in a fury. Volsky was probably only saved from immediate measures of reprisal by his parliamentary status. Imaev was not spared Dudaev s wrath either; soon afterwards he was accused of collaborating with the Russian secret services. Having been withdrawn from the negotiation process and demoted, Imaev returned to his native village of Kulary, where he turned pious and began preaching the norms of Muslim Shariah law. The Russian authorities made no attempt to prevent Imaev from travelling to Istanbul and Cracow, where the Chechens felt secure enough to engage in open antiRussian propaganda. Dudaev expressed concern about Imaev s journey. Imaev returned

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to Chechnya shortly before the Chechen president was assassinated and was last seen at a Russian fortified position near the village of Kulary, where he had gone for a meeting with representatives of the federal authorities. Imaev told the men who accompanied him on the way to Kulary that he would be back in a week. He and the people who had been waiting for him flew off in a helicopter to an unknown destination, and he was never seen again.

However, the negotiations begun by Volsky and Imaev did have a sequel: Dudaev was able to reach an agreement with Moscow on halting military operations. For the appropriate decree, Dudaev was asked to pay another multi-million dollar bribe. He paid the money so that no more people would be killed for nothing, but no decree calling a halt to military operations emerged. The people in Yeltsin s entourage had dumped the Chechens.

Then Dudaev ordered his lieutenant, Shamil Basaev, either to get the money back or arrange for the beginning of peace talks and the halt to military action, for which money had already been paid over. Basaev came up with a novel idea. On June 14, 1995, he attempted to coerce Korzhakov, Barsukov, and Soskovets into honoring their debt by seizing a hospital in Budyonnovsk, with more than a thousand hostages. After all, this was a serious business deal he was trying to close!

Responding to Basaev s occupation of the hospital, the Russian special operations squad Alpha had already taken the first floor of the building and was on the point of freeing the hostages and disposing of the terrorists, when Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin, who had undertaken to mediate, judged correctly that the Chechens had been dumped out of order. He promised to start peace talks immediately, insisted on a halt to the operation to free the hostages and guaranteed Basaev s men an unhindered withdrawal to Chechnya. There was another chance to liberate the hostages and eliminate Basaev s men on their way home, with the interior forces special subunit Vityaz standing by, simply waiting for the order. However, the order was not given: Chernomyrdin had given Basaev certain guarantees, and he had to keep his word.

On July 3, 1995, President Yeltsin signed the decree that Dudaev had paid for, No. 663: On the stationing of agencies for the military management of communications,