Official Kremlin Int'l News Broadcast September 21, 2000, Thursday REMARKS BY FIRST DEPUTY CHIEF OF THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES VALERY MANILOV AT STATE DUMA HEARINGS

Unfortunately of late -- and I am very keenly aware of it -- when the question, who is to blame? (2) is asked people tend to blame the Russian leadership, the army, the power ministries, everyone. Yes, everyone is to blame except those who have brought about this situation. Let us look back a little. It was just said here that -- how many people lived on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia 10 years ago? 1.2 million. How many are there today? No more than 500,000. How many people had to leave when the Dudayev regime and then the Maskhadov regime were established? Not just Chechens, 200,000-odd Russians had to flee leaving all their possessions behind. nationalities lived side by side in Chechnya.

I will tell you that the remains of bands which have not been destroyed but will certainly be destroyed exist in Chechnya and cause trouble to Chechen people because they get massive support from abroad. Massive support. They get $10 million to $30 million a month on average. About a hundred of different extremist organization abroad pay mercenaries.

You may say that this is not true, but three-fourths of those who are actively fighting now are foreign mercenaries. They are not Chechens. And those who say that this is a guerrilla war are wrong. Chechen people do not support these bastards and bandits.

I will disagree with honorable deputy from Chechnya Aslambek Akhmedovich who says that no one believes. This is not true. Yes, many do not believe, unfortunately, because life is very difficult and terrible disasters have come down on the people and there have been irreplaceable losses among people. And yet most people in Chechnya believe that they have their own life to lead side-by-side with other peoples of Russia, just like they have always lived, shoulder to shoulder.

So only outside support in the form of mercenaries, money, weapons, ammunition, hardware, space communications systems and other things that comes in from abroad as humanitarian aid goes to bandits rather than to Chechen people.

NOTE:

(1) This is the reason why Fred Cuny was kidnapped and killed. 

(2) 1996 The Chechen Tragedy: Who is to Blame? is published. The book accuses the United States of using Chechnya to destabilize what was left of Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book was published around the time CIA employee Harold James Nicholson was arrested for espionage. He had passed along information about CIA plans for Chechnya to the Russians. The book also lays out the stakes in Chechnya for Russia. The Russians feared that the Chechen Insurgency would further disintegrate country. The Chechen insurgency had the potential to cut the country in half. 

Page 15
“A 1979 CIA report, which leaked to the press, described the Chechen-Ingush Republic as a most promising territory with regard to the efforts to destabilize the USSR.”

Source:
Nikolaev, Yu. V. The Chechen Tragedy. Nova Science, 1996.