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'Victorious' Putin declares Chechen war over
VLADIMIR Putin, the Russian president, yesterday announced that the six-year war in Chechnya was over, claiming rebel forces had been defeated.Chechnya has become very much "Putin's war" after he launched the army into the province while prime minister in August 1999. Since then, there have been frequent declarations by the army that fighting was over, but each time the rebels launched further offensives. However, yesterday he told an annual meet-the-press news conference before more than 500 journalists that the conflict was finally at an end. "I believe we can speak of the completion of the counter-terrorist operation," he said. Mr Putin's comments come after several months of inactivity in the war-torn Caucasus province. However, observers say rebel groups usually break off operations during the winter months only to resume attacks in the spring. Mr Putin was tough and assured at the press conference where he accused unnamed foreign powers of trying to become "puppeteers" by infiltrating spies into human rights groups. The comments come ten days after state television accused four British diplomats of spying on Moscow and of funnelling money to rights groups to buy influence. However, Mr Putin said the diplomats would not be expelled. "Let them stay. It will be nicer for us to know that we can keep an eye on these people," he said. Mr Putin also gave new details of a new ballistic missile system Russia says is designed to avoid America's missile defences. "They are hypersonic and capable of changing their flight- path," he said. And he said there would be no change from his tightly centralised governing system which opponents say has rolled-back democracy. "I am sure that we need strong presidential rule," he said. There were warnings too for Georgia and Ukraine, both of which have clashed with Russia over gas supplies in recent weeks. He said Ukraine would be asked to renegotiate a deal granting them cheap gas and warned Georgia not to continue allegations that Russia blew up gas supply pipelines to the area. Posted by: tipper 2006-02-02 |
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