Putin’s War in Ukraine has Its Origins in Yeltsin’s War in Chechnya in 1994, FEP Podcast Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 26 – The Prague studio of Inna and Andrey Kurochkin has released a new 80-minute podcast, “The Third World War began in Chechnya,” that is required viewing and listening for those alarmed by Putin’s war in Ukraine but who have so far failed to understand that what the Kremlin leader is doing has deep roots in the Russian past.

            As the Kurochkins say, “today, when Russia is killing Ukrainian children and wiping Ukrainian cities off the face of the earth, many politicians and journalists have begun to recognize that Russia began its aggression with its war against the Chechen Republic in 1994” (youtube.com/watch?v=TAYWpt0Q0M8).

            At that time, they continue, “Russia presented to the entire world the Russian-Chechen war as ‘an internal affair of the Russian Federation.” But Jokhar Dudayev, the first president of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria “warned that soon all of Europe will become ‘an internal affair of the Russian Federation.”

            Tragically, “the world closed its eyes to the crimes of Russia against an independent state and to the murder of a third of the population of the Chechen Republic.” Now, with Putin’s war in Ukraine some but far from all are beginning to understand that “a fatal error” was committed and “a monster” allowed to begin to grow 25 years ago.

            Now, the Kurochkins argue, “when Ukraine is being hit, it is important to remember about the tragedy of the Chechen people.” In their podcast, they interview Akhmed Zakayev, the head of the Chechen government in exile, Francesco Benedetti, an Italian historian who has written about the independence of Chcehnya, Said Khachukayev, leader of the council of Chechen elders of Europe, and Khuseyn Iskhanov, a deputy of the Ichkeria parliament.