FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 24, 2004
“As Russia moves into the twenty-first century, it continues to have the Chechnya problem in tow. President Putin denies there is a war. Yet although combat has indeed subsided, bombings, sabotage, and terrorist attacks have not stopped. Rather, these attacks have reached new levels of daring and intensity. As a result, the human toll continues to mount. The conscript army and the practice of sending police officers across the country for tours of duty in Chechnya ensure that the war is anything but an isolated element of the Russian situation. Chechnya has entered Russia.” From the Introduction
Russia’s Restless Frontier, a new book by leading Carnegie Russia experts Dmitri Trenin and Aleksei Malashenko with Anatol Lieven, argues that while the war in Chechnya is largely perceived as largely peripheral to Russia, the conditions that have been created or greatly amplified by Chechnya have spread all across Russia. Its impact is felt in Russian politics, its ethnic environment, the military, and foreign relations.
In Russia’s Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia, the authors examine the implications of the war with Chechnya for Russia's post-Soviet evolution. They contend that considering Chechnya's impact on Russia's military, domestic politics, foreign policy, and ethnic relations, the Chechen factor must be addressed before Russia can continue its development. The book also offers a rare glimpse into the situation of Islam in Russia. Visit www.carnegieendowment.org/Chechnya to read free excerpts from the book.
Dmitri Trenin is a senior associate and director of studies at the Carnegie Moscow Center. He retired from the Russian army after a military career that included participation in the Geneva strategic arms control negotiations and was the first Russian officer to be selected for the NATO Defense College. Aleksei Malashenko co-chairs the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Ethnicity and Nation-Building Project and is a leading expert on the role of Islam in Russia and the CIS. Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and author of Chechnya: The Tombstone Of Russian Power (Yale University Press, 1998).
Russia’s Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia
Published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/March 2004/264 pages
$24.85/paperback: ISBN: 0-87003-203-8
$50.00/clothbound: ISBN: 0-87003-204-6
To order call: 1-800-275-1447 or 202-797-6258 or visit www.carnegieendowment.org/Chechnya